Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The concrete seemed to flicker under the summer heat, hazing up, smoldering the surroundings. Rubbing his tired eyes, he seemed to see a vision from the past— was it a dream he was seeing? It was a time when he lived every day in oblivion, constantly questioning the dismal future that seemed to be his destiny. 

Everything changed that fateful day; he remembers August 15th as clear as ever. If he could return to that time, then perhaps the future would have turned out differently. If, on that day, he hadn’t met them, then maybe the future would be as dull as he expected. That ordinary, blinding summer day would stay in his memory forever. 

“If we’ve all lost our ways, then there’s no way back for any of us, right?”

That’s right. Ever since that day, all of them walked forward, hand in hand, towards a future that didn’t want them. But that didn’t matter— yelling until their voices were heard, struggling until their wishes were granted, the brave children rebelled against the ruthless adults. 

Skipping school to hit the arcade, spontaneous trips to abandoned rooftops, picking fights with the most dangerous gangs… Those ordinary high school days, the best times of their lives— Surely, none of them could forget. 

Their trademark red eyes caused a fervor of discrimination amongst not only adults but also their peers. But they learned to bear with the burning hate, just as they learned to bear the scorching summer heat. 

“Shintaro Kisaragi!” 

Glancing up from his phone lazily, Shintaro frowned at his teacher’s sudden, frustrated outburst. He surveyed the entire classroom slowly, aware that all eyes were on him, before turning his attention back to his phone screen. 

“What do you want?” He asked, yawning. 

“I don’t care how good you are at your studies, but your attitude in class is unacceptable. Put away your phone, or I’ll have to confiscate it.” 

Shintaro rolled his eyes as he scoffed. “What else can I do when you can’t teach?” 

“What did you say?” 

“It’s the truth.” Shintaro stood up, swinging his backpack over one shoulder. “I’d correct the mistakes you’ve made in the last hour of class, but we’d be here all day, and I have better things to do.”

“I’m warning you. You better switch up that attitude before I put you in detention.”

Shintaro, however, was unfazed at this threat. “Listening to your class is meaningless when I can do everything myself,” he muttered. “Adults always think they’re right in everything they do. I’m sick of this bullshit.”

Lazily, he walked towards the door, ignoring his stupid deskmate’s pleading, puppy-dog eyes and her pleas of “no, Shintaro, please don’t leave.” Slamming the door behind him, he put in his earphones to drown out his teacher’s loud yelling. 

A gust of wind greeted him as he opened the door to the rooftop area he usually liked to spend his time. It wasn’t that he skipped class often; in fact, he was one of the few who rarely skipped class out of them. He only did it when the teachers were a little too... unreasonable. 

“Why are you here?” 

Ah. That snotty voice belonged to none other than Takane Enomoto. There she was, the ferocious she-devil stuck in a petite 5’2” body. As always, her electric blue hair burned his eyes with its vibrancy, and her irritated tone made him want to strangle her, despite knowing very well that he was physically weak and that she would probably beat him to a pulp. As number 6 of their gang, she now goes by “Ene” and was known to be a tech expert and a committed gamer.  

“I should be asking you that. Unlike me, you actually need your classes,” Shintaro said as he took a seat across from her. Eyeing the shooting game she was concentrating in, he sighed as he focused his attention on his phone again.  

“Shut the fuck up, Kisaragi. I am busy as hell right now.” 

“Okay, gamer girl.” 

Ene smacked him with a quick flick of her wrist. “Shut up, valedictorian. Go read a dictionary or something.” 

All his life, Shintaro grew up as a model student; he was never short of receiving marks less than 95 on his exams. But somehow, he ended up part of a gang of delinquents as code number 7, and now, here he was, united with his friends by a common hatred of adults, the obvious of the world, and harsh, cold reality. 

He and Ene go way back; he’d known her since before the gang was formed, and they’ve been bickering ever since. He’s not a fan of her brash personality and irritating tone, and he honestly thinks this girl needs to know her place. But behind that bitchy attitude was a soft heart that endured way too much hardship; deep down, he knew that, so he’d let it slide, for the most part. 

“Why are you here? Just gonna leave your precious Haruka all alone in that classroom?”

Ene’s face immediately flushed red as the name left Shintaro’s mouth. Score, he thought. Ene may prevail against him when it came to many arguments, but he knew she had a soft spot for Haruka Kokonose. There was not a single time the girl could conceal her undying love for her best friend, and it was always hilarious to see the headstrong, sharp-tongued, bitchy Takane Enomoto head over heels in love with his friend. 

“Kisaragi, you better shut the fuck up before I absolutely destroy—”

“Well, well, look who it is!” 

Once again, Shintaro recognized this voice. With his usual smirk, Shuuya Kano approached them; behind him was Kousuke Seto, who waved at them in a friendly manner. The brothers sat next to Shintaro as they opened up bags of snacks, offering them to him and Ene. 

“You guys are skipping, too?” Ene asked, taking an Oreo from Kano. 

“Totally,” said Kano. He was their gang’s number 3, and if they had hierarchical positions, he’d be second-in-command. With his unfocused, joking personality, he was known to be carefree and mischievous, taking joy in pulling pranks against teachers and other students. Shintaro didn’t necessarily hate the guy, but Kano seemed to have some sort of personal grudge against him, so Shintaro was only returning such emotions. 

“Kano got into an argument with another student last class over a group project, so we’re on strike,” Seto chuckled. As number 2, Seto was also the busiest member of the gang, working several part-time jobs in his free time. He was quieter than his brother and often praised by his co-workers for being a kind-hearted person. Shintaro didn’t have the closest relationship with him, but he appreciated Seto’s kindness and normality compared to the others. 

“Ridiculous,” Ene said, rolling her eyes. “Who would willingly pick a fight with us? They all hate us. ‘Ooh, red eyes, oh my god, they’re monsters’ and all that.” 

“That’s what I said!” Kano laughed. “But oh well, more free time for us. Kido refused to participate in our strike because she thought it was petty. Aya-nee’s still in class, too.” He glanced at Shintaro as he mentioned his eldest sister’s name, and Shintaro sighed to himself. Kano was clearly an overprotective brother, but sometimes, Shintaro wondered if he was more than that, bearing possible romantic feelings for his adoptive sister. 

“Haruka’s in class, too,” Ene sighed. “Honestly, he’s too good of a student. I don’t know why he joined the gang in the first place.” 

“Isn’t it obvious?” Shintaro couldn’t help but stare at her. He knew the reason, and so did everyone else. Seeing Ene’s blank, confused gaze at him, Shintaro sighed and shook his head. Ene and Konoha were dense as hell, and he was this close to giving up his role as Cupid Ayano’s little helper. 

“Hey, let’s forget about those goody-two-shoes and just ditch school altogether,” Kano said, a devilish grin spreading across his face. “Seto, take us home.” 

“I can’t,” Seto said. Due to his various jobs, Seto was the only one out of the Tateyama siblings who got his driver’s license as soon as possible. Tsubomi Kido, the gang’s leader, didn’t want to trouble her adoptive parents with the burden of financing a car for her. Kano decided to leech off of Seto, and Ayano was terrified by the idea of standing remotely near the driver’s seat of any vehicle, ruling her out of the equation. 

“Why? You have your car with you,” Kano said. “Come on. The base is much more comfortable than the rooftop.” 

“I’m not going to leave Marry here alone,” Seto said. Ever since he and the gang’s number 4 met, the two have been inseparable, partially due to Marry’s timidness and reliance on Seto. The girl barely spoke louder than a mosquito, but when it came to Seto, her shyness melted into the softest smile Shintaro had ever seen. The two have been in a relationship since almost a year ago, and the lovey-dovey atmosphere surrounding them made Shintaro sick. 

“Then what are we going to do for another 15 minutes, bored out of our minds?” Kano whined, collapsing onto his back. 

“Would you shut the fuck up? I’m trying to sleep here.” 

A voice from around the corner interrupted their dilemma. The four friends turned in the direction of the voice, squinting into the shadows to see exactly who the snarky attitude came from. 

“Kuroha,” Ene spat. 

The black-haired teenager emerged from the shadows, towering over them at the height of 6 feet. Without a doubt, Kuroha Kokonose was not a friend; he was AZAMI’s best fighter, making him a direct rival to the Blindfold Gang. For some reason, he never seemed to leave them alone; perhaps it was due to his terrible, twisted personality, as the rumors painted him out to be a sadistic bastard. After all, he sent ordinary teenagers into a frenzy of crying and begging for mercy with a simple mention of his name. 

“Feisty, Ene,” Kuroha taunted. “No mercy to your best friend’s twin brother?”

“Shut the fuck up. You’re nothing like Haruka. You’re a disgrace.” 

Kuroha narrowed his eyebrows. “Nobody talks to me like that.” His voice was filled with malice as he approached her with a glare. “What makes you think you’re an exception?”

Ene, however, was unfazed. She had apparently hated her best friend’s brother since the beginning, and Shintaro couldn’t blame her. Kuroha and Haruka, who now goes by “Konoha,” were nothing alike; Konoha only had good things to say about Kuroha, while Kuroha had a handful of terrible insults ready at all times. For this reason, Ene always cussed back at Kuroha, but sometimes he seemed to hold back on his insults if the recipient was her. 

“I’m not scared to tell you that I fucking hate you,” Ene hissed. “You don’t seem to believe me when I say that I hate seeing you around; I’ll fight you to prove my point if I have to, so leave me and my friends alone, you sick fuck.”

To their surprise, Kuroha looked away instead of throwing a punch that would break Ene’s nose. Without another word, he left the rooftop, slamming the door on his way out. 

“Was that too much?” Seto asked, breaking the silence. 

“Are you kidding?” Ene retorted. “It’s Kuroha. He’s a monster.”

“Anyway,” Kano broke the silence that followed Ene’s words with a smile. “Class is almost over. Let’s go get the others.”

Everyone followed him without any retorts. The school day was almost over, and Shintaro was more than ready to leave this mess of a place. Just as they left the rooftop, they spotted a familiar ball of fluff hiding by the stairs. 

“Ah, Seto!” Marry exclaimed, her eyes lighting up with joy. She ran over to them and immediately threw herself into Seto’s embrace, smiling. 

Shintaro resisted the urge to show any sign of discomfort. Technically, they did nothing wrong, but the sight of couples made his single-from-birth self involuntarily cringe. Nobody showed any romantic interest in him, and he certainly wasn’t about to make the first move. He’d rather live-stream himself eating his keyboard than get rejected and suffer embarrassment for the rest of his life. 

“There you guys are! I knew you skipped class again!” 

Oh, for the love of God, it was her. Shintaro’s calm facade melted immediately as he saw that soft, brown hair, those red hair clips, and that ridiculous red scarf. His heartbeat quickened involuntarily as she stepped closer towards him, a terribly cute (no, Shintaro, he told himself. Not now. Shut the hell up.) pout on her face. 

Recently, whenever he was with Ayano Tateyama, he wouldn’t be able to remain his calm, composed self. She had been his deskmate since freshman year, and he dealt with her stupid self for years. Really, it was almost unbelievable how incredibly dumb she was until Shintaro remembered that he had a sister who, whenever report cards were sent home, he wanted his parents to disown. She was the adoptive older sister of Kano, Seto, and Kido, so she always hung around them despite not being a part of their gang. To the public, she was a well-liked, friendly girl who never had to suffer discrimination from society. 

Despite her differences with Shintaro in personality and reputation, she had a strange attachment to him that he couldn’t understand. She claimed that she wanted to “break down his walls,” which he reluctantly tolerated because, at this point, there was no use in trying to run away from her. Although he would never admit it, he secretly enjoyed her company. This had to be some sort of mistake, he told himself. He was not going to put himself on the same level as Ene, who would be a completely different person in front of Konoha: flustered, constantly stuttering, and turning red every time they made contact. 

Shintaro Kisaragi definitely was not in love. 

“Come on, Seto and I were just protesting against unfair treatment! If this were France, our strike would be completely normal!” Kano laughed. 

“Tsubomi told me about it,” Ayano sighed. “She and Konoha are by the snack bar.” 

“Momo’s probably looking for the brat,” Shintaro said as the group walked downstairs. Initially, he was hesitant about letting his younger sister join the gang; their fight lasted for a week, and in the end, Shintaro yielded. He wanted to be a good brother and protect her from whatever dangers it would present; in reality, she was the one who introduced everyone to him and joined the gang earlier, earning code number 5, so he had no say in such a situation. 

“Come on, don’t be so harsh,” Ene said, sneering. “Hibiya’s a good kid. You sure you don’t have a sister complex?” 

“Shut up, Ene,” Shintaro rolled his eyes. He admitted he was slightly overprotective, but he couldn’t brush Hibiya Amamiya off as just another of Momo’s friends. The kid was a freshman and a little brat, but he and Momo were extremely close, and Shintaro didn’t know the kid well enough to see the intentions behind his actions.

As the snack bar came into view, Shintaro immediately saw the tall figure of Haruka Kokonose, member number 9 of their gang. Every time he saw his fellow seniors of the gang, he couldn’t help but marvel at just how much their appearances had changed from their past selves. After joining the gang, the two dyed their hair bright blue and platinum blond as a form of rebellion; they stood out immensely in crowds, and Shintaro admired their courage to complete such an act and pull it off nicely. 

“Eating again, Haruka?” Ene raised an eyebrow at the abundance of snacks Konoha was cradling. She and Konoha were the only ones who still referred to each other by their real names; they tried to change towards the beginning, but it was too much of a habit for them, so they stuck to it. 

“Leader said she would treat me!” Konoha chirped, munching on a chip happily. 

Beside him, Kido sighed. “There’s not enough food at home today for the big guy here, and I don’t have time for grocery shopping until tomorrow.” Besides holding code number 1 and the role of leader, Tsubomi Kido was also the main cook, assisted by her apprentice Hibiya. Despite not looking the part with her masculine style, Kido was an incredibly hospitable person who took care of many of the matters at their base. 

“There they are! Why are you slow, Hibiya-kun? Hurry up!” Everyone turned their heads towards the direction the energetic voice was coming from. Momo Kisaragi, number 5 of the gang, approached them with a bright smile, followed by Hibiya Amamiya, number 8 of the gang. Although she was Shintaro’s sister, the two looked nothing alike, and she would always be heavily offended when someone remarked that the two acted similarly. 

“Shut up,” Hibiya said lazily. “There’s no point in running. It’s not like they’re going anywhere.” As the only freshman and youngest member of the gang, he had a maturity that contrasted with his age. Momo often joked about how much of an old man Hibiya was, to which he always retorted, “shut up, old lady.” 

“Well, now that everyone’s here,” said Kano, stepping to the front of the group. “Let’s leave this place. What’s the plan for the after-school tea time?” 

“Not having a tea party and forming a band,” Shintaro muttered. He regretted making that reference as soon as the words left his mouth, but no luck; beside him, Ene heard and gave him a look of disgust, mouthing, “fucking weeb.” 

“Let’s get boba!” Momo said excitedly. “They have new seasonal drinks, and I’ve been dying to try them.” 

“You’re too obsessed with that stuff,” Hibiya rolled his eyes. “Basic-ass ABG.” 

“Spot on,” Kano said, bursting into laughter. “You’ve got the love for milk tea, the bleached hair, and the big Instagram platform with hundreds of thousands of followers.” 

“Acrylics, clubbing, breaking the dress code... Sounds about right,” Ene laughed. 

“If everyone else saw what she’s really like, they’d just cringe.” Shintaro shook his head. “You have the weirdest sense of fashion. Seriously, what’s with that pink “Ooedo” hoodie?” 

“Hey! That’s my favorite one!” Momo pouted. “It’s not my fault I care about what others think of me.” 

It was true that Momo upheld such an image to the public, and Shintaro knew that, in a way, she desperately worked to maintain it and that he was partly the one to blame for it. He had known about her inferiority complex since they were little, and it had manifested simply because his parents never paid attention to her as a child, focusing all their attention on Shintaro’s perfect marks and achievements. He worried about her confidence often and tried to cheer her up in his way, but the damage his parents had done to her was irreversible, and she grew up wishing desperately for others to pay more attention to her. 

Perhaps that was why he started to dislike adults. Their intentions, whether of kindness or malice, weren’t important; they hurt others with every word, gaze, and action, and they never take responsibility for the damage they’ve done. 

“Let’s hit the arcade afterward,” Ene suggested. “We haven’t been in a while, and I want to try that new game they installed.” 

“Sounds good,” Kido said. “Let’s go.”

“Yes, leader.” 

The group walked towards the parking lot, laughing and ignoring the bell signaling for the day’s last class. Around them, other students darted out of their way in fear, staring at their trademark hoodies and red eyes. The gang ignored them; they were used to it by now. 

The three members with driver’s licenses sat down in the driver’s seat of their cars, and the rest of the gang split up according to their usual carpool groups. Marry sat in the passenger seat of Seto’s Hyundai while Kido and Kano sat in the back. Ene’s BMW, which she bought herself with the money she saved up from video game competitions, was one of her most prized possessions, and Shintaro and Ayano sat in the back. Konoha drove Momo and Hibiya in his Lexus that his mother insisted on buying before she passed away. 

“Please do not throw up in my car,” Ene said, glaring at Shintaro. This statement was emphasized every time he was in her car, but it wasn’t his fault. Besides, that was one time.

“Well, if you would drive a little safer, then maybe—” Shintaro’s complaints were cut off by his wails of anguish as Ene hit the gas pedal, speeding off into the distance. Although they left their parking spot later than both of the other cars, they quickly passed them on the roads. 

“Fasten your seatbelts, guys! It’s gonna be a hell of a ride,” Ene said, grinning madly.

“You’re damn right!” Shintaro yelled. “It’s gonna be hell! Christ, woman, you’re gonna kill us all!”

“Isn’t that the fun of driving?” Ene cackled. 

“Hell to the fuck no, bitch!” 

As they approached a red light, Ene rolled down her window to look at Konoha’s car next to hers. “Haruka, let’s race!” 

“I think you should drive safely, Takane,” Haruka laughed. 

From the back, Momo rolled down her window. “I’ve never seen Konoha-san drive fast before! We should try it!” 

“Shut the fuck up! No, we shouldn’t!” Hibiya yelled, frantically pulling Momo back. 

On the other side of their car, Kano rolled down his window. “You wanna race, Ene-chan? Seto, show them what we’ve got.” 

From the driver’s seat, Seto laughed. “Driving safe is probably a better choice,” he said. 

Ene shrugged as the lights turned green. “Shame,” she said. “Then we’ll be off first!” Following Shintaro’s shrieks of “no, please, please forgive me, don’t do this, please,” she lowered her foot sharply on the gas and took off. 

“See y’all later, suckers!” Ene called into the distance.

“Keep your goddamn eyes on the road, woman!” 

After an eternity of headaches and heart attacks for Shintaro, they arrived first at the arcade; Momo’s group was responsible for picking up the drinks, so it was their job to secure spots at the best game machines. Shintaro massaged his temples as Ayano patted his back reassuringly, trying to help him catch his breath. 

Ene turned to look at them. “That was fun!” She chirped. 

“No, it wasn’t!” Shintaro yelled back. “You could’ve killed us! How the hell did you get your license in the first place?” 

“Anyway,” Ayano said, stopping Ene before she could start another fight. “Let’s go inside!”

Before Ene started dragging him toward the newest shooting game, Shintaro already knew that this visit would end up as another one of Ene’s challenges to him, whom she had viewed as her rival ever since he beat her in her favorite game years ago. She was an absolute addict, but she was indeed very good at playing games, and she’d been a streamer since she started high school. As Ene dragged Shintaro towards the shooting games, he saw the other girls head towards the photo booths while the other guys walked towards the basketball machines as they teased Hibiya about his height. 

“Watch me destroy you today,” Ene claimed as she sat down. 

“Sure, sure.”

As Shintaro won his fifth game, he looked up to see that sweet, angelic face, and immediately, his heart involuntarily skipped a beat. 

“Hey, Shintaro,” Ayano said, smiling. “I have to go now, so I’ll see you tomorrow at school.”

“Do you need a ride?” Ene asked. Despite the differences in their personalities, the two were extremely close friends, and Shintaro could never wrap his head around such a fact. 

“No, it’s fine.” Ayano shook her head. “Seto’s taking me home. He wanted to say hi to Mom and Dad.” 

“All right. See you tomorrow, then.” 

“Yep!” She turned to Shintaro and smiled gently. “See you tomorrow, Shintaro,” she said in the sweetest voice. 

He looked away immediately and nodded ever so slightly. 

After Ayano was out of earshot, Ene sighed loudly and kicked him in the shin. “What a fucking pussy,” she said, rolling her eyes. 

“What the fuck?” 

“Oh, don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about, Master,” Ene said, putting an excessive amount of sarcasm on the title resulting from a bet. “You went from bullying her with your cold-ass attitude from freshman year to being unable to look at her properly now.” 

“Shut the hell up, Enomoto. I can do whatever the fuck I want.”

“Why don’t you man up and just talk to her? You know, like a normal person?” 

“Wow, that’s rich, coming from you,” Shintaro rolled his eyes. “Why don’t you woman up and just confess to Haruka already?” 

At this, Ene’s face flushed red. Glaring at him, she walked off to join the girls at the Dance Dance Revolution machines, where Momo and Kido were having a dance battle. 

Shintaro sighed as he stood up and went to find the guys. Although he and Ene bickered, disagreed, and acted like they hated each other often, they really were similar deep down. 

They were just cowards.

“Wait, guys, what’s all of this?” Kano asked, pointing at the garage beside the back door of the arcade. It was almost dinnertime, and the gang was ready to return to their place and have some of Kido’s best dishes. The sun was close to setting, but a collection of spray bottles of paint lined the garage door caught their attention, and the empty, grey door was too tempting to be left alone. 

“Someone’s trying to paint their garage door, I guess,” Kido said, picking up a purple spray can and examining it. 

“Well, well, well,” Kano said, a devilish grin spreading across his face. “Why don’t we do them a little favor?” 

“What are you plotting this time, dumbass?” Kido asked, shooting Kano a look of disapproval. 

“Come on, Leader, don’t be such a goody-two-shoes! These materials are right in front of us as if asking us to finish the job! Let’s paint this garage and have some fun; this sort of opportunity isn’t common!” Kano said, picking up a grey can of paint and shaking it. Before anyone could say anything, he set the paint free onto the garage door. 

“Looks fun,” Ene laughed as she picked up the dark blue can. “Let’s do this, guys!” 

Everyone else turned to look at each other and, in silent agreement, grabbed their favorite colors and started their artwork. Within seconds, vibrant colors splashed across the dull garage and the teenagers’ faces, as bright as the smiles that spread across their faces. 

“Hey! What do you think you guys are doing?” 

A sharp voice interrupted their frenzy as they neared the end of their creative process, and the teenagers looked up from the artwork. A group of adults walked angrily towards them; after exchanging mischievous glances, the gang immediately dropped their painting materials and dashed to their cars, ignoring the yelling and cursing adults. Laughing, Ene turned around, stuck out her tongue, and flipped them off while Kano took pictures of their artwork. 

“I’m assuming I can drive as fast as I want this time?” Ene smirked as Shintaro practically dove into the passenger seat. 

“Go ahead,” Shintaro sighed. 

Ene didn’t have to be told twice. With a violent kick to the gas, she sped off home with Konoha’s and Seto’s cars following hers. In the distance, they could hear the adults’ protests and insults, but everyone brushed it off casually, laughing as they drove home. 

As Shintaro leaned back against the cool leather of his seat, he thought about what had just happened and couldn’t help but chuckle. 

Ah, these ordinary days filled with idiocy and laughter. Just how much could he fall in love with this? Stuck in a daze, he looked out the window at the passing scenery, a faint smile tugging at the edge of his lips. 

If it’s with them, he could change “loneliness.”

Chapter Text

The smell of ashes and smoke still lingered in the air around her. 

It wouldn’t go away. No matter how many times she took a shower, changed her clothes, and sprayed Momo’s expensive perfume all over her, it never left her. The fire was always there, buried in the depths of her mind. She felt it in her hair, tasted it on the tip of her tongue, and saw it in the depths of the red in her eyes. 

To this day, she could still feel the lack of air in her lungs as the world burned down around her, asphyxiation ripping away her strength and forcing her to collapse onto her knees. Her elder sister, that confident, iron-willed woman, dragged her back onto her feet. Cursing under her breath, her sister hurled herself at the locked basement door.

No luck. The door stayed shut, and as the seconds ticked by, she lost hope as quickly as she lost her oxygen supply. 

She locked those acrid memories away ever since her new life began, but they haunted her, tormented her endlessly, and there wasn’t a thing she could do to stop the nightmares. 

“I wish you died in that fire instead of me.” 

The black ink printed on white parchment spelled out her worst nightmares, and as all her friends crowded around to read the note posted on their front door, Kido felt her blood run cold. Within seconds, all those repressed memories flooded back clearer than ever. With quivering eyes, she glanced at her friends, terrified of what they would say. They were silent for a few minutes, staring at the note in confusion. 

“What the fuck?” Ene finally broke the silence. “All right, whose prank is this? Kano, it’s you again, isn’t it?” 

“Whoa, hold on there, Miss Ene,” Kano said, taking a step back as everyone turned to look at him. “You’re accusing me a little too quickly, aren’t you? Without any evidence, too. Am I that type of person in your eyes?” 

“I don’t know, but you don’t have much credibility around here,” Momo said, narrowing her eyes as she examined Kano. “Why are you nervous? That’s kinda sus.” 

“Agreed,” Hibiya nodded. “Who’s the note directed towards?” 

“Hey, hey, hey!” Kano protested. “Quit jumping to conclusions! I didn’t do it! Guys, what happened to trust?” 

“That’s karma for you,” Shintaro said, taking a sip from his can of coke as he looked at the note. 

Kido didn’t know what to say. That handwriting was eerily similar to Rin’s, but her sister’s ashes were long gone, and so were the Kido family’s. Was her sister back to haunt her as a ghost? Did she hate her for everything she did? The more she thought about it, the harder it was to stop herself from shaking. 

“Leader, who could it be?” 

Momo’s question yanked Kido back to reality. Her friends all looked toward her, and in that split second, she thought she saw mockery in their eyes. Shaking away the hallucination, she forced herself to turn back toward the note. With a shaking hand, she ripped it from the door. 

“It’s just a stupid prank. Not a big deal,” she said in her best calm “leader” voice. She opened the door and walked straight towards the kitchen to make dinner, trying to conceal her trembling. Everyone else filed in after her, quickly forgetting about the hostile note and going on to relax. 

But she couldn’t do the same. The thought lingered in her mind and refused to go away as she chopped the carrots and washed the onions. She thought she had put all those years in the Kido mansion behind her when she met the Tateyamas and the gang, but her memories of those days were clearer than ever. 

She’d felt out of place for as long as she could remember. She didn’t belong anywhere, and “home” wasn’t a warm, happy place to be at. Whether it be the various lessons her father made her attend or the parties where she sat in the corners, she knew she wasn’t meant to be there. If she hadn’t been born, she would have saved her father and her sister the trouble of attempting to integrate her into a society that didn’t want her. 

She remembered the whispers of the servants as she walked down the hallway. She remembered the strange looks she got wherever she went, whatever she did. She remembered how everyone seemed to have something to say about her, how rumors circled her like hawks around a rotting corpse. 

She remembered how much she wanted to disappear. 

She hadn’t had these scary thoughts since she moved in with the Tateyamas. Ayaka and Kenjirou were nothing like the cold, distant Kidos, and they welcomed her into their family, even though they weren’t related by blood. Ayano and Seto were the best siblings she could ask for, and even though she didn’t want to admit it, Kano made her feel at peace with herself. For years, she’d pushed the Kido family to the back of her mind, and maybe that was a mistake. Was she heartless for forgetting about Rin after everything she had done for her? Did Rin hope to punish her from the heavens because she could walk forward without her? As she turned on the fire at the stove, she couldn’t stop thinking about the note. 

Maybe she should’ve died in the fire instead.

Before she knew it, her outstretched hand inched closer to the fire as if she couldn’t control her actions. The flames stretched upwards, reaching hungrily for her fingers, and as they licked her palm, she felt a sharp pain that she was convinced she deserved. 

Before she could sink her hand deeper into the fire, she was pulled back with a firm grasp. Staring into Kano’s serious gaze, her heart skipped a beat. For a second, she felt the urge to cry, but she didn’t want anyone to feel pity for her, especially not him. 

“What are you doing?” Kano asked quietly. It was rare to see him this serious, and Kido averted her gaze, unable to look into his eyes. 

“Why are you in the kitchen? Go rest in your room like everyone else.”

“I asked you a question.”

“It’s none of your business,” she said, biting her lip. “I’m fine.”

“Do you expect me to believe that?” 

“Let go of me.” 

“No.” His grip on her wrist tightened; she could tell he was shaking— was he worried about her well-being, or was he scared of her? These thoughts echoed in her mind as Kano walked her to the sink and carefully ran cold water over the light burn on her hand. “I’m calling takeout for dinner. You’re going to rest.” 

“You’re overreacting,” Kido said, wincing. “I said I’m fine.”

“I’m worried about you. I’ll go get some burn medicine.”

Kido pulled away from him. “I can do it myself,” she said. She wanted to run away; Shuuya Kano shouldn’t care for her this much, and she didn’t want him to see her like this. “You don’t have to be worried.”

“Were you trying to hurt yourself?” 

Kido paused in her footsteps. “I wasn’t,” she lied. “It was an accident.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

How dare he. She couldn’t even count how many times he had lied to her. He never revealed his true thoughts to her, as if he couldn’t trust her or anyone else. It irritated her; he’d closed himself off from everyone else ever since she met him all those years ago, and even though she was the closest to him, she still felt like she didn’t know him at all. How could he call her out for lying when it was a detrimental habit for him? “That’s hilarious. I’m going back to my room.”

She didn’t even want to hear his response; how could he say that when all he’d done was lie to her? After all, he didn’t care about her in the way she wanted him to. 

She opened her eyes to darkness. Reaching over to check the time on her phone, she realized it was already way past dinnertime. She wasn’t very hungry, so she figured she’d make some cup noodles for herself later in the evening since it seemed like it would be another sleepless night. Marry wasn’t in their room, and thankfully, nobody saw her cry herself to sleep. Sighing, she rolled over to get up but froze as she saw a familiar figure sitting in a chair next to her bed. 

“What are you doing?” She hissed.

“Come on,” Kano said. “I’m just checking up on you.” 

“You don’t need to,” Kido muttered, trying to conceal her embarrassment. “I’m perfectly fine.” 

“I’m sorry about earlier,” Kano said, sighing. “I went to the kitchen to grab a drink and saw you put your hand into the fire. I was worried that you were trying to hurt yourself seriously.” 

“It’s not like that,” Kido said, looking away. “I don’t know… I wasn’t really myself at the time. But it really isn’t a big deal.”

“Talk to me. Don’t you trust me?” 

Kido stared at the boy in front of her. Behind all the punches and kicks she threw at him was her unwavering trust and love for him, and she knew that he would be there for her no matter what. 

So what was she scared of? 

“It’s about the note, isn’t it?” Kano asked softly. 

Kido closed her eyes and nodded. “You know what it’s talking about,” she said. “You know it was directed toward me. It wasn’t a prank; it’s what I deserve. That handwriting is my sister’s, and she’s the one that should’ve lived instead of me. Maybe she’s been alive all this time and I just didn’t know, and I’m out here living happily as I forget all about her. Maybe she’s suffering at this very moment and I haven’t done anything to help her. I’ve known it all along, and she’s punishing me for it now… I’d do everyone a favor by disappearing—”

She was interrupted by Kano, who pulled her towards him for an embrace. Kido didn’t know how to react; Kano had always been a mystery to her, and she could never see his true thoughts. How could he be such an annoying jokester but such a reliable person whenever she needed someone? How did he know what she needed at any moment without her having to say a word about it? 

“I don’t want you to disappear,” Kano said sternly. “Nobody here does. We all love you so much as our leader, as a friend, as family.”

Could she really live on happily, even if she grew up wanting to die? Could she depend on Kano and the others to be there for her? “Are you sure?” She whispered. 

“Don’t disappear, Tsubomi.” 

It turned out that, for once, Kano wasn’t a liar. He insisted on walking her everywhere since it was still unclear where the note came from. He gave the note to his underlings to find the culprit, along with the various junk texts Kido received following that day. 

She insisted that she was fine and protested against his actions, but in the end, she gave in. She told him it wasn’t that big of a deal, but Kano didn’t believe her. The possibility of a stalker following Kido was alarming to him, and in some way, he must have felt some responsibility to protect her after listening to her worries.

Kido didn’t want to burden him, but his stubbornness gave her no choice. They already took Seto’s car to and from school and spent lunch and after school together, so honestly, there wasn’t a big difference. But now, Kano waited for her in front of her classroom after every period and stuck close to her at all times. 

“Leader, I have a question,” Momo whispered one day during class. A sneaky smile had appeared on her face on the fourth day, and Kido knew immediately what she was thinking. 

“Go ahead,” Kido sighed.

“Does Kano-san like you?” 

Kido looked away to conceal her embarrassment. “Kisaragi, you should focus on the lecture instead of a stupid thought like that.”

“Even if I listen, I can’t get above a 50 on tests,” Momo sighed. “I’ve given up. But don’t try to change the subject!”

“I was also wondering the same thing!” Marry exclaimed. The girls loved gossip, and Kido had to thank god that Ene was a senior and not in their class, or else this topic would destroy Kido. 

“Right?” Momo said excitedly. “I’ve always noticed that he has a soft spot for you, Leader. He’s been hanging around you ever since you got injured.”

“He calls you by your first name sometimes,” Marry pointed out. “You don’t let anyone else do that.” 

“It’s not like that,” Kido sighed. “He doesn’t like me like that.” 

“Don’t you think he’s pretty good-looking? I heard from Hibiya-kun that Kano-san has a few freshman fangirls.” 

Something about Kano having fangirls made Kido furrow her eyebrows in annoyance. “Why don’t you date him then?” She asked Momo. “You guys get along pretty well.” 

Momo burst into laughter. “No, I’m good. He’s not my type.”

“Then who’s your type?”

“That’s not what we’re talking about right now! We’re talking about you and Kano-san! I swear, he definitely likes you.”

The bell rang before Kido could respond, and the three quickly left the classroom. Upon seeing Kano waiting outside, Momo smirked at Kido before leaving with Marry. 

“What’s with them?” Kano asked, raising an eyebrow. 

“Don’t worry about it.” Glancing at the boy in front of her, she couldn’t help but think about what her friends had just talked about. She had known Shuuya Kano for almost ten years, and the boy had changed incredibly since they met. She didn’t know when his features started to seem more mature; the last time she checked, he was still shorter than her, even with his ridiculous platform boots, but now, he was almost a whole head taller than her. 

His yellow cat-like eyes always glinted with mischief, but they didn’t lose any of their charms when he became serious. When he looked at her, she felt a mixture of emotions she couldn’t describe, so she covered those confusing feelings with violence. She knew why she felt strange around him; she wasn’t stupid, just constantly in denial. But she concealed those thoughts and pushed them to the back of her mind because she knew Kano didn’t feel the same way. 

“Is that stalker still there?” Kano asked as they walked to the parking lot to wait for Seto. 

“Relax,” Kido said. “There probably isn’t a stalker, so stop worrying.” 

“Your intuition can’t be wrong. Besides, we've got to stay cautious until we find out who posted that note.” 

“How do you expect to find that out?” 

“I have my ways,” Kano said, flashing her a smile. “Anything for you.”

“You’re an idiot. You don’t need to do all this for me,” Kido said, rolling her eyes.

“Come on, Tsubomi, you know I love you.”

Damn it, Shuuya Kano, why did you have to be in love with Ayano? 

She knew Kano was right, but she didn’t want to admit it. Someone was plotting against her, someone who wanted her to disappear. But of course, she didn’t tell him; who knew what sort of reckless thing he would do if he knew?

She didn’t know why he had to act so confusing; why would he act so sweet towards her when he was in love with Ayano? For the most part, Kido accepted it as part of his personality, but sometimes, just sometimes, she wondered why he was willing to do all of this for her. 

She, however, had no expectations. Blood-related or not, Ayano was her older sister, and she wasn’t supposed to feel any jealousy toward her. Her feelings toward Kano have been successfully repressed, for the most part, and Kido was okay with remaining friends with him for the rest of her life. 

But recently, these thoughts have occupied her brain, and on top of that, the threats didn’t stop. Kido’s mind was a mess, and she was far from being in the mood to listen to boring lectures. The janitor’s room on the third floor was her favorite spot whenever she skipped class. It was quiet, and barely anyone knew about the place; even the janitors barely used it. She could put in her earphones and blast her music loud while relaxing. 

For the past few days, she skipped class quite often. Kano was visibly frustrated when she wasn’t in class, but he was partially the reason Kido’s head was a mess, so she didn’t feel too bad for him. 

She turned her favorite song to maximum volume and lay on the floor. There were still 15 minutes until the end of school; she could afford a nap. Her mind drifted back to that house fire as she closed her eyes. 

Her past seemed crafted for a cliche drama character instead of a real person. Her mother died after giving birth to her, the illegitimate child of a famous businessman. She was immediately sent to the Kido mansion and grew up being raised as a wealthy heir, despite never having any possibility of inheriting anything. Throughout her childhood, she was surrounded by hushed whispers, rumors, and disgusted gazes for years and years and years. 

Her elder sister was the only one who cared about her. Besides being the only real family Kido had before she met the Tateyamas, Rin Kido was confident, intelligent, and caring. She was what Kido wanted to be, who Kido never was. Despite their status differences, her sister never treated Kido as any less of a person. As long as she had her sister, Kido endured everything else that accompanied her name. 

But that fire took away everything. 

She lost her sister forever. The red-haired woman would no longer tell her horror stories and tease her about her fear of ghosts. When she woke up and found out that she was the only one who survived the fire her father started, she felt more pain than she did when she was stuck amidst the flames that threatened to engulf her. The smell of burning was so real to her as if she were stuck in that fire again. 

This was no time to think about the past. Sighing, Kido walked to the door; maybe staying in the janitor’s room wasn’t the best idea. She felt too claustrophobic in there, so she decided to go outside for some fresh air. 

The door, however, wouldn’t open. Kido’s blood ran cold as she frantically turned the door handle again and again, but no luck; someone had blocked the door from outside, and she was trapped. 

Her phone buzzed with a new text message, and she checked it with shaking hands. Upon seeing what the message said, fear paralyzed her limbs, and no matter how loudly she yelled and willed for her body to move, she was stuck staring straight at her nightmares. 

“Burn in hell, bitch.”

In those moments, every single second she spent in that fire seemed to flash before her eyes. She could see her sister cursing at the flames that danced around them, mocking them for their futile resistance. She could see herself curled up on the floor, too scared to say or do anything. She could see the pain, the desperateness, and the despair. 

She had to do something. She glanced back at her phone to call her friends, hoping that someone, anyone, could save her. Her blood ran cold as the phone screen dimmed, shutting off from running out of battery. 

What’s next? Was she going to die here? If so, then maybe she deserved it. Maybe she really deserved to disappear in that fire years ago; she wasn’t supposed to live until now. But why did she want to live so badly if that was the case?

She didn’t know how long she spent there trying to catch her breath. Suddenly, she heard a faint knock on the door, and she knocked back from her side of the door, praying for someone to stay for long enough to help. 

“Kido?” 

The sound of that familiar voice brought tears to Kido’s eyes. Her voice choked in her throat as she pressed her palms against the door, relieved that it was him who showed up. 

“Shuuya!” 

There was a short, shocked silence from both sides of the door. She hadn’t said his name in years, ever since they created the gang and started going by their last names as “codenames.” She didn’t know how the name fell from her lips, but he must have realized something was wrong because she heard a few curses from the other end before a sharp noise and the door opened. 

She hated to admit it, but the moment she saw him, she couldn’t hold back her tears anymore. Without any second thoughts, she threw herself at him, sinking into the soft fabric of his hoodie. He returned the embrace, smoothing out her hair reassuringly.

“What’s wrong?” He asked after her sobs subsided.

She told him about the endless text messages and how she was trapped inside. She told him all about how scared she was, how little she felt like she was worth, and how truly she believed she was destined to disappear. He listened to her every word and stared at her with a grave expression once she finished her story. 

“If I found out who was doing this to you, would you want me to tell you?” Kano asked. “Would you want to talk to them, or would you never want anything to do with them?”

“I want to know,” Kido responded firmly. “I think I deserve to know.”

Kano was visibly conflicted, but he did his best to keep his voice calm. “We called the police once the note and the texts started appearing. They were able to find out who’s been doing all of this to you.” He paused to study her expression before continuing. “It was Reika Kido.”

It couldn’t be. Her stepmother should have died in that fire along with everyone else; how is it that she was alive after all these years? 

“She committed suicide before the police could locate her,” Kano continued. “She left behind a note, but it… It isn’t the nicest thing to read.” 

Kido took the photocopied letter from him, and after taking a deep breath, she began to read.

“I do not regret anything I did. We gave you a place to stay, but all you ever did was repay us in nasty rumors and a tarnished reputation. If you didn’t exist, everyone would be happy; you deserve to disappear. But all you ever do is try to run away like a coward. You should’ve burned in hell long ago.”

“She had some accomplices, and one of them is still on the run,” Kano said. “That one’s probably the one who locked you in here and sent the last text. The police will catch him, and this sort of thing won’t happen to you ever again. I promise.”

“All this time, I thought she was dead,” Kido whispered. “I didn’t think she hated me that much.”

Kano stared at her awkwardly. “Look,” he said. “What she said… None of it is true. I hope you know that. There’s definitely something wrong with her, and you don’t deserve any of this. You shouldn’t disappear, and I hope you’re not thinking about doing anything stupid—”

In one swift move, Kido kicked him in the shin. Staring at his surprised look, she couldn’t help but laugh. “You’re an idiot,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Where would you guys be if I’m not there with you all? I’m your leader. I’m not going anywhere.”

Kano stared at her before replacing his shock with his usual grin. “I didn’t know our leader liked the Blindfold Gang that much!” He exclaimed. “My, my, this brings tears to my eyes! Seto’s waiting for us outside, and I have to tell him!”

“Shut up,” Kido said. “I’m going home. We’re eating curry tonight.”

“Are you embarrassed, Tsubomi? There’s nothing wrong with expressing love for your friends!”

“There’s one thing Mother was wrong about,” she said as they left the school building. 

“What?”

“I’m not running away. I’m moving forward.”

As a gust of wind tousled their hair, she looked up at the sky and closed her eyes to take a deep breath. The smell of ashes had disappeared; the wind carried about a sweet smell, subtle, fragrant, and refreshing: 

The scent of a blooming flower. 

Chapter Text

The first time he fell in love with her, she was sitting at her desk in class, laughing with her friends about something he didn’t understand. They were only ten years old back then, not even old enough to know what “love” really meant. All he recognized was his quickened heartbeat as he watched her smile and flip back one of her pigtails, the “thump-thump” noise in his chest drowning out the world around him. His gaze never left her throughout the class, and the more he looked at her, the warmer his cheeks felt. 

He knew who she was; then again, who didn’t know each other in this small countryside village? She, however, was a different existence altogether. As the second daughter of the wealthiest family in town, she was practically a celebrity. From a young age, she had opportunities her fellow classmates could never even dream of having, able to sharpen her skills in piano, ballet, ikebana, and more. Her popularity was well-known; the saying “throw a rock randomly and you’ll hit a fan of Hiyori Asahina” had circled the town for a while now, and even as a fifth grader, she had rejected countless proposals of love already. 

He never believed in “love at first sight,” but when it happened to him, he dropped all of his past beliefs. She was brighter than any star he had ever seen before shining in the night sky, and he wanted to get closer to her. He wanted to protect that smile of hers, such innocence and purity. He wanted to make her happy more than anything else.

But she never looked at him, not even once. As they approached the end of elementary school, he prided himself in being one of her friends, although she herself never admitted it. They didn’t talk much, but they were on okay terms, and to him, that was enough for now. They were the only two students of their class to leave their town and venture into the nearby cities for school; sadly enough, they were going to separate cities, and he thought his feelings would fade slowly over time. No luck.

He fell in love with her again and again at different times, at different places, in different situations, but his love for her never changed.

“What’s she like?”

Hibiya looked up at the sudden question. He and Konoha have been sitting at the train station for almost thirty minutes now, and Konoha was running out of snacks, so Hibiya guessed that he was getting a little bored. It was understandable; she was fifteen minutes late, after all, and nobody could reach her. 

He, however, had never been so excited before. He was about to see the Hiyori Asahina for the first time in almost a year. She was visiting Mekaku City for a week during break, since she apparently had family here. Her sister and brother-in-law were both at work during the day, so she reached out to Hibiya to help her get to where she was staying. He agreed excitedly, brushing away the fact that she probably just needed someone to carry her luggages, and asked Konoha to accompany him, since he clearly could not drive yet. 

“She’s… someone who would never hold back on what she wants to say. She’s straightforward and energetic, and she’s a really good person,” said Hibiya. 

“That’s great!” said Konoha, munching on his last Oreo. “I’m so excited to meet her! She’s your childhood friend, right?”

“Yeah…” said Hibiya. In reality, could he allow himself to call her his friend? They had drifted apart quite a lot during the year they spent in separate cities, and Hibiya was beyond surprised when Hiyori contacted him. But nonetheless, he was so nervous and excited to see her that he barely got any sleep last night.

“Oh, there you are.”

Hibiya looked up and he could swear that his heart skipped a beat. There she was. Her features had matured quite a bit, and she was just as beautiful as he remembered her to be. Her black hair was let loose from her usual pigtails, reaching the slightest bit past her shoulders. She wore a white t-shirt underneath a black strapped dress, and she tapped her black sandals against the floor impatiently. 

“Hiyori!” He stood up immediately. “Long time no see!”

“Yeah, yeah.” Her gaze turned to Konoha, who stood up with an excited smile. 

“Hi! I’m Konoha,” he said. “Nice to meet you!”

Hiyori studied the unfamiliar figure in front of her before smiling brightly. “Nice to meet you! My name is Hiyori Asahina! I hope to get along with you!”

Hibiya furrowed his eyebrows at Hiyori’s excitement. “Konoha’s one of my friends and he’s a senior at my high school. He’ll be driving us back today,” he explained.

Hiyori ignored his words and handed him her luggage. “Let’s go!” she said to Konoha instead. “I’m so tired and I need some rest. I hope Hibiya told you the address?”

“Yeah! If I’m not mistaken, I think it’s actually one of my friends’ houses! Do you know Ayano Tateyama?”

“Oh my gosh, yeah! She’s my niece! I know it’s weird, since I’m younger than her. But her mom is my older sister! I haven’t seen them in years! This is such a coincidence! It must be fate!”

Hibiya stared after the two of them and let out a long sigh. In a way, he wasn’t surprised that Hiyori would ignore him like this. To her, he was probably just a convenient associate who listened to what she said. 

On the way back, Hiyori excitedly claimed the passenger seat and rambled on and on to Konoha, who politely listened to her stories. Hibiya sat in the back and listened grudgingly, as these stories were not told for him. He had a bad feeling about Hiyori’s sudden interest in Konoha, but who was he to say anything about it? Hiyori barely even looked him in the eye upon arriving. 

He was right. As they got to the Tateyama household, Hiyori pulled him aside as Konoha was carrying Hiyori’s luggage up. 

“Does Konoha-san have a girlfriend?” she asked excitedly. “How did you guys meet, anyways? How is someone as cool as him hanging around you?”

“He… doesn’t,” said Hibiya hesitantly. Sorry, Ene, he thought to himself. I’m just being honest here. “We live in an apartment together with our other friends.”

“Then you best bet I’ll be visiting sometime soon!” said Hiyori excitedly. “He’s so good-looking. Anyways, I’ll be resting here now. You can leave now.”

“I’ll see you around then.” No “thank you.” No “it’s nice to see you.” No “see you later.” As Hibiya left the apartment, he could hear a crack forming in his heart as he let out a loud sigh. Hiyori wasn’t like him; she was always straightforward and fearless, and she always spoke her mind. 

If she didn’t say something, then that thought probably never even crossed her mind in the first place.

Over the next few days, Hibiya was tasked with running various errands for Hiyori. Whether it be going outside to buy any accessories or groceries or snacks she wanted or cooking lunch for her whenever the Tateyamas weren’t home, Hibiya did as he was told immediately. With a single text message from her, Hibiya would jump up from his spot on the couch at the base and sprint to the Tateyama household, eager to do whatever Hiyori wanted. 

In return, he got an occasional “thanks” or, if he were really lucky that day, a smile. Oftentimes, she wouldn’t even say anything. He tried to start conversations with her, but no luck. She would respond, but she was obviously disinterested, and he had to bring up Konoha to get her attention. 

The gang never questioned his unusual behaviors; they brushed it off as him wanting to help his childhood friend. At least that’s what Hibiya hoped they thought. His friends were enjoying their breaks, too, so they shouldn’t be focusing all their attention on him. Kido was attending indie concerts at livehouses, Seto was busy with his multiple jobs, and Kano was out doing god knows what. Marry and Konoha stayed at the base most of the time, and Momo was often out clubbing. Ene was at some sort of video game competition, and Shintaro shut himself in his room at all times. 

On the third day of Hiyori’s stay, Hibiya was repeatedly tasked with different errands. He would finish one of his jobs and sit down on the couch to rest when his phone buzzed once again with another request. He wasn’t exactly too unhappy about it; if it meant more opportunities to see her, he was fine with it.

When he stood up to run his fourth errand of the day, a hand pulled him back. It was Momo, who had a fiercer expression on her face than usual. 

“Where are you going?” she asked sternly. 

“Supermarket. Hiyori wants chips.”

Momo frowned. “And why can’t she go buy it herself?”

“I dunno. I gotta leave; she’s waiting.”

Momo stepped in front of him, blocking his path. “Why are you doing this?”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t tell me you truly feel happy doing all of this. She’s just treating you as a convenient servant. She’s just using you!”

Hibiya glared at her. It wasn’t like Momo to use such sharp words, and he certainly was more than ticked off to hear them from her. “What do you know? You’ve never even met her before!”

“Regardless, whatever she’s doing isn’t right. She has no right to make you do all of this shit. Have you even gotten proper rest these past few days? She’s been asking you to do this, do that every single day. Don’t you see what I’m saying?”

“Shut the hell up. I’m leaving.”

“Wow, that’s what I get for trying to care about you?” A cold laugh escaped from Momo’s lips. “You’re pathetic.”

“What did you say?”

“I said you’re pathetic.” Momo glared back at him. “You think doing all of this is going to captivate her attention? You think she’ll thank you or think highly of you?”

“Again, what do you know?”

“Fine. Do whatever the fuck you want. Keep acting like a dog. See if I care.” Her words dripped with such venom that Hibiya involuntarily took a step back in surprise. She stormed off without another word, leaving Hibiya in stunned silence. It wasn’t that Momo never got mad, and they’ve certainly had their share of disagreements and fights before.

But this time, it felt different. It was as if they each struck a nerve with a topic that deeply concerned each other. He was frustrated. She hadn’t even met Hiyori before; how could she draw such conclusions? He desperately wanted to prove her wrong. There was no way Hiyori only thought of him as a tool. They’re friends. Right?

And why was Momo so bothered by his actions? It’s not like they affected her, anyways. Sighing, he stood up, packed up his things, and headed for the supermarket. Momo’s words circled around in his mind until he reached the Tateyama residence, making it difficult for him to meet Hiyori’s eyes. 

“Oh, you’re here,” said Hiyori once she opened the door. “What took you so long?”

“Sorry,” said Hibiya, handing over the chips she asked for. “Had a fight with a friend.”

“Oh? Tell me about it.” Hiyori stood to the side of the doorway to let him in. “I’m bored and I could use a story.”

“It’s not really a big deal,” said Hibiya, following her to the living room. It was weird to be familiar with the layout of Ayano’s house; he and Ayano barely spoke to each other, even though she got along well with everyone else. Although everyone in the gang was friends with each other, there were obvious cliques that formed. Out of everyone, he was closest with Momo and Konoha, and that was about it. Shintaro seemed to dislike him, and he hadn’t had the opportunity to get closer with any of the others. 

“Make it interesting,” said Hiyori, rolling her eyes. “Who’s the friend?”

“Her name is Momo Kisaragi. She’s a sophomore.”

Hiyori immediately bolted upright. “Momo Kisaragi?! Like, the internet famous Momo Kisaragi?”

Hibiya blinked. “Oh. Yeah. I forgot about that.”

Hiyori shook him by the shoulders. “How could you forget about that? She’s sooooo pretty! I follow her on Instagram! You never told me you knew her!” 

“You didn’t give me a chance to,” said Hibiya, sighing. Gathering up his courage, he looked at Hiyori. “All I’ve been doing these days is run errands for you. Not saying that you’re annoying or anything! But we haven’t really talked much, you know? I haven’t seen you in a while and all.”

Hiyori stared at him with wide eyes. She stayed silent for a few minutes, and in those few minutes, Hibiya thought his heart was going to burst from the nervousness. She was visibly conflicted, and finally, she shook her head and mumbled something to herself. “Oh,” she said slowly. She lay her back against the sofa and sighed. “It’s not very good for me to do that, huh?”

“I didn’t mean to blame you! I was just—”

“Yeah, yeah. I know.” She ran a hand through her hair and paused before continuing. “I’ve been like this for a big portion of my life; it’s hard to change. Of course, I know that’s not an excuse. But before I knew it, I was used to being bossy and asking people to do things.” Hiyori let out a sad chuckle. 

Hibiya bit his lip as he stared at her. He didn’t expect her to tell him any of this, and he had never seen this calmer, quieter side of her before. “It’s okay. I don’t mind.”

“But you should!” she said. “I’m...sorry for how I treated you.”

“It’s okay,” said Hibiya, his heartbeat speeding up in his chest. “I’ve been meaning to ask this, but… Are we friends?”

Hiyori pouted slightly. “Don’t make me say it out loud,” she said, embarrassed. “Yes. We’re friends.”

Hibiya burst into laughter. He couldn’t stop laughing even when Hiyori punched him in the arm bashfully, and he couldn’t stop smiling until he left the house. Standing at the closed door, he closed his eyes and let out a huge sigh of relief. 

“I’m so glad I met you, Hiyori.”

After that, Hibiya was no longer tasked with running errands. He would still visit the Tateyama household when Hiyori asked him to, but now, they ate snacks together and talked about the various things that happened to them in the year they spent apart from each other. Hiyori told him about the city she lived in and various stories of her friends, and Hibiya did the same. 

He was a little hesitant when telling her about the Blindfold Gang; what if she no longer wanted to associate herself with him once learning that he was labeled as a delinquent? But there was no need for such worries; Hiyori was cool about it and seemed decently interested in his stories, although she did ask about Konoha and Momo fairly often. 

He didn’t have the courage to ask her about her thoughts on Konoha. It was fairly obvious that she found him attractive, and Hibiya was scared to hear more. Although she had only talked to him once coming back from the train station, Hiyori seemed head over heels for Konoha, and Hibiya would be lying if he said that it didn’t bother him. 

The sudden sound of the doorbell interrupted his thoughts. Momo stood up and opened the door, and immediately, everyone at the base heard a deafening shriek.

“Oh my god, it’s Momo Kisaragi!”

Hibiya could recognize that voice anywhere. It belonged to none other than Hiyori Asahina, and he immediately got out of his seat and approached the doorway.

“You must be Hiyori-chan, then,” said Momo, laughing. Hibiya had explained what had happened between him and Hiyori to her, and the two had apologized to each other for the fight earlier. 

Hiyori nodded furiously. “Yes! I’m Hiyori Asahina; nice to meet you! Oh my god, you’re even prettier in person! I’ve followed you on Instagram for a while now and your pictures are so cute!”

“Aw, thanks!” said Momo, smiling brightly. “You’re super cute too! I’ll follow you back right away. So, why are you here today?”

“I’m looking for Konoha-san!” Hiyori tilted her head to the side to look into the apartment. “Is he at home?”

“Oh,” said Momo, surprised. “Yeah. Konoha-san!” 

Lazily, Konoha walked from the kitchen to the door. On the living room couch, Ene looked up ever so slightly before turning back to her game console. 

“Hi, Konoha-san!” said Hiyori excitedly. “I was wondering if you’d want to get ice cream together! I saw a commercial for this new ice cream shop that’s not too far from here!”

“Sure!” Konoha’s eyes lit up at the mention of food. “Right now?”

“Yeah! If you’re not busy, that is.”

“Let’s go then!”

After saying goodbye to everyone else, the two of them left the apartment. Hibiya sighed and walked back to his spot on the couch. 

“What’s with her and Konoha-san? I didn’t know they were friends,” said Momo, sitting down next to him. 

Hibiya shrugged. “She likes him, I guess.”

Immediately, Momo pinched him on the arm, causing him to let out a yelp of pain. Her eyes darted toward Ene, who just clearly messed up on her game on the couch next to theirs. Hibiya scrunched up his face awkwardly; usually, Ene would be wearing headphones and too absorbed in her game to listen in, but today, her headphones were nowhere in sight. He completely forgot about her being there, and he realized that he clearly shouldn’t have said that. 

“Fuck,” Ene cursed at the game console. Looking up, she realized that the two of them were both staring at her. “What? Why are you guys looking at me like that?”

“Ene-chan, Konoha-san just went out to get ice cream with Hiyori-chan,” said Momo cautiously.

Ene raised an eyebrow. “I am aware.”

“You’re not gonna stop them?”

“Why would I?” Ene put down her game console and took out her phone instead. “He can do whatever he wants to do.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Haruka is a grown ass man. He can take care of himself, and I’m not his mother,” said Ene, rolling her eyes. “I’m out. Got a few games to play.” With that, she walked back to her room and shut the door. 

“She’s so bad at being honest,” said Hibiya, raising an eyebrow. 

“That’s been established for a while now,” said Momo, laughing. “Speaking of which, you like Hiyori-chan, right? Don’t try to deny it.”

Hibiya sighed and ignored the heat that rose to his cheeks. “Yeah,” he grumbled. “Go ahead. Make fun of me all you want.”

Momo flipped back her hair and laughed. “Come on, I do it because I care about you! Now, tell me the story. How did you guys meet?”

Hibiya closed his eyes as he went down memory lane. It’s been a long time since he thought about their encounter, and it seemed like something from lifetimes ago. “We grew up in the same village. She’s always been the celebrity; everyone knew her and adored her. I was no exception. I kept trying to get her attention, doing anything and everything that would make her happy. We started talking more in middle school, but by the end of it, we went to different cities for high school.” 

Momo stayed silent for a bit, fidgeting with her fingers. “Do you know why I was mad at you a few days ago for doing all of that for her?”

Hibiya shook his head.

“I’ve wanted attention for as long as I can remember. For my entire life, everyone around me only saw my brother. He was obviously the star student, the perfect child, and I was far from his level. I tried everything I could do to captivate others, anything and everything you can think of. Seeing you do the same for Hiyori-chan’s attention really frustrated me; it was like looking at myself in a mirror, and I hated how pathetic it seemed.”

Hibiya didn’t know what to say. He had no idea that Momo struggled with such thoughts; he didn’t have any siblings, so he never really understood how that would feel like. To him, Momo was always energetic and bright; although he was good friends with her, he never knew the more subdued version of her. 

“I know it’s really hypocritical of me to say this, but you are your own person,” said Momo. “Don’t chase blindly after someone else so much that you lose yourself in the process. They won’t appreciate you more just because you’ve done a good amount for them.”

Hibiya nodded slowly. “Yeah. Sorry about that.”

Momo smiled and tousled his hair. “Don’t say sorry to me. I’m gonna go out and get some boba. I’ll see you later.”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

Hibiya rarely saw Hiyori upset; sure, she would be mad or frustrated, usually at him, but she wouldn’t be sad . He awkwardly sat on the couch next to hers and stared at her, wondering why she made him come over immediately. Her eyes had lost some of that energy and edge she was known for, and she was lying lazily across the sofa, heavily unfocused on everything. She would give a little sigh from time to time and roll around to shift positions. 

“I confessed to Konoha-san,” she said finally. 

Hibiya tensed up at her words. “What did he say?” he asked cautiously. 

Hiyori let out a long sigh and smiled sadly. “He rejected me.”

“Oh…” Hibiya didn’t know what to say. He was never the best at comforting people, especially when it was about something that he shouldn’t be happy about. 

“You don’t need to comfort me,” said Hiyori, reading through his inner conflict immediately. “Just listen to what I have to say.”

“Yeah. I’m listening.”

“I never believed in love at first sight. ‘What bullshit,’ I always thought to myself. It was so unrealistic. How could you fall in love with someone you barely even knew? It seemed superficial to me. But when I saw him at the train station that day, I fell in love; at least, that’s what I thought. I thought he was so good-looking and so perfect , and I immediately concluded that it was love. I’m not a very laid back person, so I went for it.”

She paused, glancing at Hibiya ever so slightly to see if he was still listening. Hibiya was, of course, and he nodded to reassure her. 

“I told him the day we went to get ice cream,” said Hiyori. “He smiled at me. He said that I was a good girl and he really appreciated it, but he was in love with someone else. He reassured me that there was nothing wrong with me and asked if I was okay with being friends. I said yes, of course, and afterwards, I thought a lot about what happened. 

She looked straight into his eyes, and Hibiya nervously looked back at her, anticipating her next words. 

“I wasn’t in love with him,” she said with a sigh. “I was in love with the idea of him. I didn’t know him well enough to claim that I was in love, and I kept creating these illusions of what I wanted him to be like so that I could stay in love. There’s no way someone can confidently say that they’re in love with a person they barely even know; I understand that now. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, but these feelings weren’t supposed to lead to any fruitful results.”

Hibiya was silent. It wasn’t that he didn’t understand what she was saying; no, he understood more than anyone else. These were thoughts he had always pushed away whenever they surfaced, and they were the discoveries he kept denying every single time they appeared.

It was true; he hated to admit it, but he didn’t know Hiyori well enough. He barely knew her likes and dislikes, and admittedly, he hadn’t talked to her much over the last five-or-so years he had known her. He barely knew the real her; how could he proudly proclaim that he was in love? 

Hiyori sighed as she looked away. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For ranting about this. I know it’s not a very fun topic to listen to.”

“It’s okay,” said Hibiya, forcing a smile. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll be here for you no matter what.”

“Are you sure?”

“Isn’t that what friends are for?”

It was time to give up. 

He’d known it for a while, but it never really sank in. He didn’t want to accept such an ending to his first love; there was more, there must be more he could do to get closer to her, but alas, time washed away the intensity of his emotions, and he knew that it was time to move on. 

He still loved her; he loved talking to her, being with her, and watching her smile at anything and everything. But after thinking for a long while, he concluded that it was better for the both of them to simply remain as friends. Hiyori could do better than him, and he would be happy for her no matter who she ends up with. 

He stopped visiting her as frequently in the last few days she was in town. He and her both knew that they needed some time alone to think about some things and sort out their emotions on their own. 

He took a few walks outside. The gang often made fun of him and his “old-man-like” tastes, but he desperately needed some fresh air. Walking along the sidewalk and admiring his surroundings, he couldn’t help but think back to when Hiyori excitedly talked about her admiration towards the city when they were back in their countryside town. It was because of her that he decided to work towards attending high school in the city, but they ended up going to separate places. Perhaps it was fate’s work, telling him that it simply wasn’t meant to be. 

He planned on walking around aimlessly, but before he knew it, his feet had carried him to the Tateyama household, where Hiyori was staying. Awkwardly, he stared at the building for a while before shaking his head and turning the opposite direction. 

It was funny; when he was running after her, he never really looked back on the times he spent with her. But now that he was standing at the end of his journey, he couldn’t stop reminiscing about the memories and little moments he fell in love.

He remembered how he timidly introduced himself to her years ago, only to get a cold “Oh. Cool,” in return. He remembered how he sulked when rumors regarding “Hiyori Asahina’s first boyfriend” started to circle around town and how he brightened when Hiyori herself disproved it to everyone. He remembered how much he panicked when Hiyori smirked at the sight of him with a girl who was rumored to be his girlfriend. He remembered how he memorized her school schedule and tried to create “fateful encounters.” He remembered…

“I kinda hate summer,” she had said to him a year ago. The two of them had sat in the playground in their home town before they were forced to part ways. The sun’s rays beat down on them, and Hiyori bore a frustrated expression as she swung back and forth on the swing set. It was a bold thing to say at the time, as their town was known to be a tourist attraction during the summertime. But then again, when wasn’t she a bold and daring girl?

He chuckled at those memories, bittersweet but an important part of his teenage years. There were so many that he didn’t even know existed, and he smiled to himself as he bit his lip and tried not to cry. He spent his entire life trying to be more mature than his age; Hiyori seemed to dislike immaturity, and he was always teased as the youngest member of the gang. Was it okay for him to let loose, just a little bit?

He looked toward the next sidewalk in front of him and saw a familiar figure. It was her. She tied her hair in low pigtails, the same hairstyle of hers in his memory. Involuntarily, his heart skipped a beat as he watched her play with a stray black cat. She smiled softly at it as she petted its head and stroked its fur. 

He was hesitant on approaching her; that would defeat the purpose of giving up, he thought to himself quietly. So he only stood and smiled faintly from afar. The cat wriggled out of her embrace just as she picked it up and darted towards the streets. She pouted and protested, chasing after it. 

Lights flashed. Horns sounded. He yelled. She looked up. Everything happened too quickly, and before he knew it, he was running towards her as fast as he could. He wished he had Konoha’s strength and speed; but he was Hibiya, just Hibiya, and if there was one thing he had never given up trying to do, it was to see her smile. 

She didn’t see the traffic light flash a bright, glaring red, but he did. She didn’t see the truck that sped down the road in her direction, but he did. He was always chasing after her, but this was the last time. 

“HIYORI!”

He caught a glance of her astonished eyes before he jumped into the street and pushed her aside. Before everything went black, he scoffed at the blazing heat, muttering a quiet “serves you right” under his breath. 

If he had run faster, stretched his arm further, would he have been able to reach her?

The first thing he heard was her quiet sobbing. 

He struggled a bit to sit up. He didn’t feel too much pain, and for as much as he could see, he only had a few scrapes and cuts along his arms. His head spun as he glanced at his surroundings, and as he recalled what had happened, he let out a huge sigh of a relief. 

He was alive, and so was she. That was all that mattered to him, and as he looked at her, he couldn’t help but smile. She was sitting in a chair next to the hospital bed he was lying in, and her messy hair was let out of her pigtails. She looked up at the sound of him waking up, and she immediately started crying again.

“What,” she said between sniffles. “The fuck is wrong with you?”

Hibiya burst into laughter. “What’s wrong?”

“‘What’s wrong?’ You fucking tell me what’s wrong! You fucking idiot! You could have died! Why did you do that?”

“Come on, don’t cry.” With a smile, he quietly wiped away tears from her face. “I hate it when you cry.”

“You idiot,” she said, hiccuping. “Thank god you’re safe. The doctor said that it’s practically a miracle. You can be discharged as soon as this afternoon.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” said Hibiya, laughing. “I wouldn’t want to lose a limb or anything.”

“You didn’t have to do that for me. You didn’t have to do anything for me.”

“I did it because I wanted to.” Hibiya stared at the girl he was in love with for years; she was in front of him, crying for him. “If you reverse time and go back to that moment, I’d do it for you again, without a doubt.”

“I’d do it for you, too.”

Hibiya stared at her with wide eyes. Never did he ever expect her to say something like this to him. He felt his heart skip a beat, and as his cheeks reddened, he smiled at her. “That’s… Wow. I didn’t expect that.”

Hiyori bit her lip as she averted her gaze. “I know I was never very nice to you. I know I never acted like it, but you’re the realest friend I have, and I’ve always thought of you as a friend. So please, don’t do something like that again. I don’t want to lose you.”

He couldn’t hold back his laughter, so he laughed, and as Hiyori’s face grew red with embarrassment and protested against him, he smiled as he stared at the girl in front of him.

The hundredth time he fell in love with her was also his last, and he thanked her for painting his teenage years a beautiful color.

Chapter Text

She’d always been running. 

Never slowing, never stopping, as if the world was falling apart behind her and she had to escape before it was too late. She pushed on forward as she ignored everyone around her, blocking out her surroundings with the thick leather padding of her headphones. Every moment seemed like a race, fighting against time, against harsh reality, perhaps even god. 

It was as if a voice kept calling out to her, urging her to keep looking ahead. It counted down every second of her life that mockingly ticked away, and even as she grew tired, grew weary, it never gave her any opportunity to let loose. 

“You still want to live, right?” 

The words echoed throughout her mind as she picked up her speed again, running, running, running… Over time, she ran from this side of the playground to that, from one end of the school campus to the other. She joined track in high school, and she soon became a varsity athlete. Facing the frequent praise she got from her teammates, how could she tell them the truth? That she took “running away from your problems” very literally? 

It wasn’t a good habit; she knew it, and so did the voice in her head. “I’m sorry,” it always said to her when things got rough. But she had become so accustomed to running, running away, that there wasn’t a thing she could do about it. Her world became a blur, and eventually, she lost track of what she was chasing after. 

But she kept running.

“Don’t fucking let her run away!”

A chorus of angry yells and the clashing of weapons filled the air as Actor’s blood ran cold. Without any second thoughts, she turned around immediately and bolted out of the parking lot. The group of six guys followed her, tossing insults and curses left and right. She didn’t dare to look behind her at how quickly they caught up to her, because those guys carried wooden swords and baseball bats with sharp nails sticking out of them, for fuck’s sake, and she did not want to get hit in the face with that.

Fuck, fuck, FUCK, she thought to herself as she willed her legs to carry her forward further, quicker. She had to get out of here before she got seriously hurt; for god’s sake, when she took up this job, she definitely underestimated how dangerous it would be. 

Actor was always pretty good at running, but the guys knew the area a little better than she did, and soon enough she was backed into a corner, her red eyes wide with terror as they stared her down menacingly. 

“You think you can run away?” said one of them, sneering. “Today’s the day you pay for everything you’ve done, Headphone Actor.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said Actor, covering up her trembling with a tone laced with faux confidence. “You must have the wrong person.”

The group laughed. “You’re funny. Can’t even remember the faces of your clients? What a failed underground information broker you are.”

“I prefer the title ‘informant.’”

“I don’t give a shit about your title! You sold us false information two weeks ago on the Blindfold Gang! They weren’t at the plaza yesterday afternoon. We waited for hours for our surprise attack, but they weren’t even there!”

Actor raised an eyebrow. “How am I supposed to know if they suddenly changed their plans? They were accurate at the time of our deal. That’s not false information.”

“Shut up! You better brace yourself, ‘cause these nails are gonna hurt when your pretty face takes a hit.”

Actor squeezed her eyes shut as she mentally prepared herself for the pain. She’d been hit in the face with something of the sort once before, and it wasn’t a fun time. In the five months she had started her business, she’d been chased down twenty times, caught ten times, and injured six times. This would be the seventh time she’d go knocking on the gang’s door, asking for some first aid; she was surprised that her face hasn’t scarred yet. 

The sharp sensation of pain that she anticipated, however, didn’t come; instead, she heard a loud shriek and the sound of bones cracking before her. She opened her eyes and saw that the guy who held the dangerous-looking bat was now sprawled on the floor, his nose bashed in quite uglily. Before she could process what had happened, the other guys suffered the same fate, and the sight of blood and flesh from their terrible wounds made her feel nauseous. 

Her attackers fled the scene immediately, shrieking as they ran as fast as their injured bodies allowed them to. Actor glanced up nervously, knowing that there was only one person in the entire city who could have defeated a group of delinquents this quickly. 

“You got yourself into another mess? Save me the trouble of saving you every time and stay away from these people, would you?”

“I didn’t ask,” mumbled Actor, averting her gaze. 

“Wow, great attitude. Is this what you have to say to someone who saved you from bruising your face? Again?”

“Thanks,” said Actor grudgingly. “Kuroha.”

The black-haired teen smirked at her response. To this day, Actor didn’t know how she started talking to the most feared delinquent in the city. She had to admit, Kuroha Kokonose was pretty terrifying at first glance; with his piercing gold eyes and sinister aura, he was more like a member of the mafia than an average high schooler. He was strong, stronger than anyone she had ever met before; his strength was unparalleled, and he could seriously injure someone with a single punch. 

The two of them met a few months ago, at the beginning of her career. At first, she didn’t see anything wrong with her client’s request; she happily provided the information that she was asked to get and moved on to her next clients. But what she didn’t expect was getting threatened by Kuroha himself, who showed up at her apartment and told her to shut up about him towards her clients or else . She expected to never see him ever again and for sure planned to stay as far away from him as possible. But as fate toyed with them, they continued to get tangled up in each other’s matters, and soon, both of them gave in and managed to tolerate each other’s presences. 

Actor wasn’t quite sure about what she thought of him. On one hand, she knew very well how terrible his reputation was and how much her friends hated him, and he clearly wasn’t exactly a very good influence, either. But in some twisted way, she felt at ease when interacting with him, as if she could finally stop and catch her breath. 

“That’s more like it,” he said. “Guess you can keep that gas mask on your pretty face, now that they’re gone. So, what’d you do this time?”

“Nothing,” said Actor, sighing. “They wanted information on the Blindfold Gang. Just like everyone else. I gave them the info, but the gang changed their plans last minute, so my clients decided to take it out on me instead.”

“So the usual,” said Kuroha lazily. “I love humans. They really are the most interesting creatures you can find.”

“That’s cringey as hell,” said Actor, rolling her eyes. “How did you know I was here? Why did you come?”

“If I said it was a coincidence, would you believe me?”

“Absolutely not.”

“I was just trying to do something nice for my friend,” said Kuroha, his usual smirk plastered across his face. 

“We’re not friends, ” said Actor. The word left a bitter taste on her tongue, and she didn’t want to think too much into what exactly she and Kuroha were. 

“Wow, that hurt more than expected,” said Kuroha. He stepped closer toward her, causing Actor to step back until she was pressed against the wall. She felt her face heat up as he rested his palm against the wall next to her ear, their faces centimeters apart. “Actor Enomoto, you really have no mercy towards me. With that much attitude, how come you only sit on the sidelines as an informant?”

Ever since the Blindfold Gang formed a few months ago, Actor also started her own business as an underground information broker, although she preferred the title “informant.” Under the alias Headphone Actor, she gathered information on anything her clients asked for, but she worked mainly for students, especially the middle and high school delinquents that roamed the city. To conceal her identity, she kept a fake gas mask that covered half of her face at all times.

It was simple business for her, and she earned some good money from it, so she was more than content with her job. It also gave her an opportunity to join her friends without having to participate in the gang’s activities. Fighting and aggressiveness was not for her; when it came down to a tough situation, she always preferred running.

“Why are you hurt? You’re only trying to get close to me because you like my sister,” Actor retorted. Seeing the dumbfounded expression on Kuroha’s face, an expression so extremely rare for him to show, Actor couldn’t help but giggle inwardly. Although her twin sister Ene hated Kuroha with a passion, Actor could tell that the latter was clearly attracted to the former. She felt a little sorry for Kuroha, but teasing the mighty Kuroha Kokonose of AZAMI was way too much fun. 

“I’ve been telling you over and over again,” said Kuroha, sighing. “You’re misunderstanding. I don’t like your sister. She’s simply an interesting individual to observe.”

“Yeah, I know,” said Actor, biting back a laugh. “You’re interested in her. Very much so.”

“Just like how you’re interested in my brother?”

His words caught her completely off guard, and she choked on her own spit. She stared at him, speechless, as her mind tried to process his words. He did not just say that. There was absolutely no way he figured it out. She herself already kept running away from the fact; how could he have known? 

Seeing her expression, Kuroha smirked. “That’s right. I know that I’m not the only one who’s in love with the same person as their twin. You’re right; both Konoha and I like Ene. But who are you to say anything about that? You like Konoha. Just like Ene does.”

“You—”

“Oh, Haruka Kokonose, how dreamy . Just the perfect man to exist. He’s nice, he gets good grades, he’s friendly to everyone. He’s—”

“You can stop now!” Actor was aware that her cheeks were probably redder than ever by now. She could feel the heat rise within her, and oh, how she wanted to run away from the current situation. It was already bad enough being in love with the same person as her sister and knowing that the two of them were meant to be, but having his brother find out about this secret of hers, too? It was more than she could handle. 

“He’s liked by everyone, and the person he loves the most also loves him back. And he’s good-looking.”

Actor raised an eyebrow. “Did you really just compliment yourself in the process of complimenting Konoha?”

Kuroha gave her a look. “Shut up, I can do whatever I want. Let’s just never speak of this again; it’s better for the both of us this way, anyways. Otherwise, it’ll end in mutually assured destruction.”

“Wow, using big words, huh, Kokonose-kun?”

“You’re annoying, Enomoto,” said Kuroha, rolling his eyes. “It’s late. I’ll take you home.”

Actor didn’t protest; she had planned to jog home, but it was later than usual and the city wasn’t the safest place for someone like her. She followed Kuroha to his Harley and as she wrapped her arms around his waist on the way back, she closed her eyes as she felt the refreshing breeze on her skin.

She was thankful that the motorcycle helmet hid her face from him; it was moments like these that she didn’t know how she should think of Kuroha. Were they friends? Or were they enemies? She didn’t know. Closing her eyes, she shook away her worries and focused on the noise of the city nightlife around her. Again, she would be running away from her problems.

Because that’s what she’s best at, isn’t it?

Takane Enomoto. Haruka Kokonose. The two that now went by the names of Ene and Konoha were the two most important people in Actor’s life. One of them was her twin sister, while the other was her first love. Admittedly, it was a pretty gross situation to be in, and Actor never thought that something out of a soap opera would happen to her. 

Takane met him first. The two of them were in the same classes since freshman year, and Actor was surprised at how much the stubborn, headstrong Takane opened up to him, perhaps because of his constant pestering. But it was clear that Takane enjoyed his company and vice versa. Actor transferred to their high school in their junior year, finally reuniting with her sister. Despite being extremely similar to her sister, she would have never expected to fall in love with the same person as her.

Anyone could tell that the two had feelings for each other, but because of Takane’s stubbornness and Haruka’s denseness, the two were caught under the impression that they were dealing with unrequited love. It frustrated Actor immensely, but she decided that the couple needed to handle things their own way and that she was nobody to butt in. After they became Ene and Konoha respectively, Actor had given up on her feelings already.

Almost, that is. She still couldn’t help but feel her heartbeat quicken whenever she was around Konoha, so she avoided him as much as possible. But sometimes, it wasn’t so easy. Konoha, that kind soul, almost thought she hated him because of it, so she had to find a nice balance between hurting herself and hurting everyone else. 

“Oh, Actor! Long time no see!”

She looked up at the sound of that energetic voice. It was always amusing to her how visibly different Kuroha and Konoha were, despite being twins. Upon becoming Konoha, Haruka had dyed his hair a snowy white. His expression was warm and kind, while Kuroha… He was very much the opposite, to say the least. She didn’t see the gang around school too often, as she usually stayed in her classes and hung around her other friends and occasionally Kuroha during lunch and break. But she would make sure to catch up with Ene or the others once in a while, not just for her job. 

“Hey,” said Actor. “Yeah, how’s it going?”

“It’s great!” said Konoha happily. “I would tell you about what we’ve been doing, but you probably already know that. How’s your job going?”

“It’s going,” said Actor, sighing. “Had a bit of a tough time because of your change in plans, though. Got surrounded by some clients and would’ve needed some first aid again if it weren’t for Kuroha.”

“I’m glad you’re getting along with Kuroha well.”

Actor looked at him in surprise. That wasn’t the usual reaction anyone gave her when she talked about Kuroha, but then again, he was his brother, so it made a little more sense. “Well, we’re not really friends. I don’t know how we started talking to each other.” 

“Still. I hope you guys are doing well, though. Kuroha may seem a little… scary, but he’s a really good person and I’m sure he appreciates you a lot, so—”

“Don’t talk about me behind my back, you idiots.”

Actor didn’t know when Kuroha had walked up behind her and started listening in on their conversation. He lazily leaned against the windows in the hallway and stared down at her from his incredible height. 

“Kuro. Long time no see,” said Konoha, ignoring his comment and smiling at him instead.

Kuroha raised an eyebrow at his childhood nickname. “That’s how it should be. You do realize that we’re part of rival gangs, right?”

“Still. I haven’t seen you in a while and I missed you!”

Kuroha rolled his eyes and sighed. “You never learn, do you? Always so naive and carefree. How did someone like you become a delinquent?”

Konoha laughed. “It’s fun,” he said simply. “I gotta go. The gang’s ordering take out for lunch today. See you both around!” 

As soon as Konoha left, Actor turned to Kuroha and gave him a look. “Why can’t you just be nicer to him? He’s your brother. How come you guys are on such bad terms?”

“Why do you care? Oh, right. Anything for dearest Haruka.”

“That’s not what I’m saying,” said Actor, well aware that her cheeks were growing redder by the second. 

“And what about you? Do you plan to run away from him forever?”

His words pierced through her heart as sharply as a knife would, and as she stared into his golden eyes, she felt as if he saw through her entirety. For a second, she thought she stopped breathing; no words came to her lips, and her throat lost all abilities to make any sound. 

“Don’t pretend like you don’t know what I’m talking about. You think I haven’t noticed that little habit of yours?”

“I’m not running away,” said Actor finally, biting her lip as she did.

“See? You’re doing it again,” said Kuroha. “You run away from everything you encounter, all your problems and worries. It’s disgusting to watch.”

Actor’s eyes narrowed into a glare as she listened to his words. “What do you know?” she spat at him. “Fuck off.”

Kuroha stared at her for a few seconds before scoffing. Without another word, he walked away, leaving Actor alone to regret her actions, just as usual.

She was just about to finish up her time in her office and call it a day when a group of scruffy-looking grown-ups marched up to her and slapped a handful of hundred-dollar bills onto her desk.

“A thousand dollars for any useful information on AZAMI’s Kuroha Kokonose,” said the man. 

Actor blinked slowly as she tried to understand what had just happened. She furrowed her brows and stared at the money in front of her, then at the group of angry men. “I’m sorry,” she finally said. “I can’t give you information on him.”

“Two thousand, then.”

She raised an eyebrow at how money seemed to not be an issue to these men. Although the number was tempting, she made a promise to Kuroha before, and she wasn’t going to be that bitch that goes back on her word just because she was mad at him. “I’m sorry, but he himself has made the request that I do not share any of his information. I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

The man scoffed. “Who cares about what he thinks? He’s harmful to society. The world would be much better without him, and he’s out here thinking that his opinion matters in the slightest? He’s just a parasite.”

Actor felt her blood boil at the man’s words. Kuroha wasn’t necessarily the nicest person, but he didn’t deserve hate like this . She knew the real him, and she knew that all the times he helped her and was nice to her wasn’t just an act. Deep down, he was a good person; he and her simply never wanted to admit it. 

“That’s not very nice,” said Actor through gritted teeth. She wanted to lash out at the men in front of her, but considering that it was technically business hours and the fact that they would pound her silly, she restrained any of her mean words.

“What, you care about that monster?” The man laughed. “Have you lost your mind? Or have you been manipulated or threatened?”

“I’m simply speaking my mind.”

“Oh, trust me, you’ll think differently when you see the real him.”

“And pardon me, do you know the real him?”

The man seemed to be at a loss of words as he stared at her. “Five thousand,” he said finally. “Final offer.”

Actor bit her lip. “I’m sorry.”

The man shrugged. “Your loss,” he said. As the group turned around and walked away, the man paused for a second. “Are you really sure you’re right about who you should trust? Think about it.”

As the door slammed behind them, Actor sank back into her chair and stared at the ceiling. Her office was where she first met Kuroha Kokonose. She remembered their first encounter clearer than ever; she opened the door, expecting to see the delivery man with her takeout, only to be towered over by a scary-looking teenager, who backed her into a corner and against a wall immediately. 

She hated to admit it, but one of the first things she noticed was that he was rather good-looking. But those thoughts were immediately brushed away by complete fear, as his expression was murderous. “Quit being nosy, Headphone Actor,” he had said in a menacing tone. “Unless you want your pretty face to scar.” 

But his threat only fed the fire of curiosity that was ignited within her, and although she did as she was told and never gave out his information to anyone else, she did her share of digging into the rumors surrounding AZAMI and Kuroha Kokonose. The gang was headed by a woman in her twenties, a high school graduate who never attended college. There were twelve members, their most notable member being Kuroha. He was the strongest of them all, so he got into fights frequently. She could’ve gone deeper into his past, but she rested the task aside, assuming she’ll have nothing to do with him in the future.

Oh, how wrong she was. As they got closer, she considered researching him, but something within her told her that researching a ‘friend’ was probably wrong on multiple levels. She could have also asked Konoha about him, but the idea of asking her crush-that-shouldn’t-be-her-crush about his brother just seemed weird. Therefore despite knowing him for a while now, she really didn’t know much about him, about his life, about his past. 

She knew how much her sister hated him. She knew the rumors and the discrimination that circled around him, but she couldn’t bring herself to hate him. She wanted to trust him, but with everyone else around her telling her she shouldn’t, how could she ignore it all and simply follow her heart?

She shook her head. Now was not the time to think about this. She let her hair out of her trademark Headphone Actor pigtails and tied it back into a ponytail. Grabbing her jacket, she left the office and jogged home.

Actor was only a few blocks away from her apartment before being surrounded by yet another group of dangerous-looking people. She immediately regretted her decision to go for a jog after dinner for the first time in a while that night. After a refreshing 5k, she was just about to head back when she got cornered. 

This time, she didn’t recognize these delinquents. They seemed a little older than high school students, perhaps college sophomores or juniors. They weren’t her clients, and they seemed much more dangerous. There were only four of them, but each of them stared her down so intensely that she felt a cold shiver run down her spine. 

“Let’s chat, shall we?” Their leader smiled at her and gestured to their car that was parked a few feet away. Actor’s heart thumped in her chest as she thought about the possibilities of what she could do. Running was an option, the option she knew best and usually took, but she knew they would be able to catch her. Maybe Kuroha was right; running wasn’t always the best choice. 

So she did as they said. Nobody said a thing during the car ride, and Actor nervously looked at the surroundings that flashed by outside to get an idea of where she was. They took her to an abandoned factory shed and stood around her, making sure she wouldn’t be able to escape. Actor complied, as she saw the glint of a knife in the leader’s pocket. 

“What do you guys want?” she asked finally. 

“Don’t look so scared,” said the leader, laughing. “We’re just a little… curious about your relationship with AZAMI’s Kuroha. You two seem very… friendly.”

“We’re… associates.” Actor took a few seconds to look for the right word to describe her relationship with Kuroha. They just had a small argument the last time they saw each other, after all, so she wasn’t really feeling like calling him her friend. 

“Well.” He circled around Actor, observing her from head to toe. “A word of advice. Don’t get involved with his matters. People like him shouldn’t exist.”

Actor glared at the man in front of her. Who was he to talk about Kuroha like that? To say that he shouldn’t even exist? Words like those plagued her for her entire life, and she knew too well about how it felt to be hated and discriminated against. She did her best to live up to society’s expectations, but no luck. It simply wasn’t enough. She was sure that Kuroha felt the same, and she knew that he deserved to live, happily. 

“Oh, don’t look at me like that,” he said, smiling at her. “Do you really trust him over me? Don’t pretend like you don’t know what I’m talking about. You’ve gotten into a few messes because of your relationship with him, haven’t you? Doesn’t it disrupt the ordinary life you wish to live? Isn’t he creating problems for you? If even that doesn’t convince you, once you hear about his past, you, too, will leave him. Like you should.” 

“What are you trying to say?”

“I’m here to offer you something. A proposal,” said the leader. He paced around her excitedly, a look of insanity clearly showing on his face. “Join us, and you’ll never have to live in fear of Kuroha ever again. We’ll take him down, make sure he’ll never show himself to the public ever again. Deep down, it’s what you want, too, isn’t it?”

Did she want it? Did she want Kuroha to disappear from her life, from the public, from the entire world? Was Kuroha a threat to the ordinary life she wished to live? Did he bring about issues for her, getting her caught in dangerous matters that she didn’t want to handle? Did she hate him, just like everyone else did? 

She always knew the answer deep down, but she kept running away from it. 

“What do you know?” she whispered. 

“What was that?”

Biting her lip in anger, she glared at him. “What do you know about him? What do you know about me ? Don’t pretend like you know everything about everyone,” she said. Letting out a cold laugh, she looked away. “You disgust me.”

“What, you’re planning to stay with someone like him ?”

Actor turned back to the leader, staring at him with an unwavering gaze. It was time to give up that habit of hers, and she was ready to open her eyes to the truth. “He told me not to run away. That’s why I’m going to stand and fight. I won’t leave him, because I believe in him.”

“Now that’s what I’m talking about.”

The familiar voice was cool, laidback, with a tinge of pride. Kuroha lazily walked into the room, hands in pockets with a grin on his face. The other three members looked at each other, dumbfounded, but the leader let out a laugh as Kuroha approached them. 

“So you came,” said the leader, the smile on his face poisoned by pure hatred. 

“Well, clearly, judging by the fact that I’m standing here talking to you,” said Kuroha. He seemed unfazed by the situation and the group before him. “What kind of dirty tricks are you going to play this time?”

As soon as Kuroha finished his sentence, the leader whipped out the blade that had been sitting in his pocket. With one hand, he grabbed Actor hostage, and with the other, he held the knife centimeters away from her neck. “Try taking another step forward, and I’ll slit your little friend’s neck.”

Kuroha, however, didn’t seem surprised in the slightest. “I guess we’ll talk from there, then.” He instead turned to look at Actor, who was doing her best to stop herself from trembling or sinking to the floor, at this point. “Am I your friend?”

“Don’t make me say it out loud,” said Actor, biting her lip as she tore her eyes away from the knife. “You already know the answer.”

“Do you trust me?”

“Yeah.”

Kuroha stared into Actor’s eyes, and as she stared back, she could see something else within his gaze, a hidden message of apology that only she would understand. For the first time, it was as if she saw him without his guard up, as if he was revealing his true emotions, all things Kuroha Kokonose was known for not doing.

A few seconds later, he closed his eyes and let out a breath he had been holding in. His expression immediately distorted into one of madness as his laughter resounded throughout the room. “Ridiculous!” he yelled. “You should’ve known better, idiot. Why would you trust someone like me? Are you asking for trouble, or are you just dumb?”

So that was his plan. Suddenly, his previous questions all made sense. He wanted her to believe him, to trust him, so that his hurtful words wouldn’t be taken seriously. If that’s what he was getting at, then she was more than happy to play along. Feigning surprise and hurt, she bit her lip and brought her voice down to a whisper: “You… How could you say something like that?”

“That’s right,” said the leader, sneering. “See, he’s showing his true colors to you now. Do you understand now? You’ve been deceived by him. Now, just join us and—”

“How interesting. Tell me more, would you?”

A cool, unfamiliar feminine voice followed the cocking of a gun, and Actor could feel the arm around her neck falter. She looked at Kuroha, who was now smiling confidently and staring mockingly at the leader who held her hostage. 

“You’re… from AZAMI…”

“I was getting tired of waiting,” said Kuroha as he walked towards them. He smirked at his companion. “Might want to fix your procrastination habits, Yaki.”

“You’re so funny, Saeru.” The sarcasm was evident in her voice. Without waiting for a response from Kuroha, she turned to address the delinquents instead. “Try taking another step forward, and I’ll blow out your little friend’s brains. Sound familiar?”

“When did you—”

“Irrelevant. Now, step away from the girl and let her go.”

Grudgingly, the leader let go of Actor, whose legs immediately gave way as she sank to the ground. She didn’t know how much she was shaking until she tried to stand up but continuously failed. Kuroha immediately ran over to her and lent her a hand.

“Are you okay?” He asked softly as he helped her up. 

Actor nodded in response, allowing him to put his arm around her to keep her steady. 

“Boss, you told us that we would only have to deal with one ordinary girl and maybe another delinquent!” said one of the delinquents, panicking as the others nodded in agreement. “You didn’t say two AZAMI members ! And one of them’s Kuroha !”

“Shut up!” yelled the leader. He glared at his subordinates. “It’s your fault that she sneaked up on us! Say another word, and I’ll pull out your tongues.”

“I don’t think you have the time or opportunity for that,” said Yaki, laughing. “If you guys leave, you won’t suffer the same fate as he will.”

The three delinquents nodded eagerly as they fled the scene, leaving their leader cursing after them. Yaki dropped the gun that she held to the leader’s head, and the leader dropped to his knees, trembling just as Actor was. 

“Now,” said Yaki, smiling. “How should we punish him?”

Kuroha turned to Actor. “What do you think?”

The leader looked up immediately. “Please. Have mercy. I’ll do anything!” He turned to look at Actor, and the desperateness in his eyes made her sick. “You’re a nice girl, aren’t you? Beautiful. Kind. Caring. Please…”

Actor ignored his words and instead turned to Kuroha. “Make sure that he can never bother us ever again.”

Kuroha smirked. “Roger that.”

Cracking his knuckles, he approached the leader with Yaki, who flipped her brown hair over her shoulder, the same devilish smile on her face. Normally, Actor would look away from their actions that followed, but this time, she didn’t run away. She stared straight into the eyes of the leader as he faced the wrath of AZAMI, and she only looked away when the job was finished.

Once they were finished, Kuroha walked back towards her immediately. He stared at her for a moment, his gaze filled with a mixture of complex emotions she couldn’t identify. He put a hand on her head and smoothed out her black hair that had become tangled and messy during the kidnapping. 

“What’s wrong?” she asked, a little nervous and embarrassed. 

He only shook his head. “Nothing,” he said. “I’m glad you picked up the hint.”

“Of course I did,” said Actor, looking away as her cheeks reddened. “It was obvious.”

He smirked. “To you, and to you only.”

A few feet away, Yaki let out a hum of amusement, prompting the two to look at her. “Interesting,” she said, raising her eyebrow and smiling. 

Kuroha sighed. “Thanks, Yaki. I owe you one.”

“I know you do,” said Yaki calmly. “My, my, the great Kuroha Kokonose, owing someone a favor? This is unheard of! I better use this to my advantage.”

“Of course you would,” said Kuroha, rolling his eyes. “Come on, Actor. Let’s go.”

Sensing Actor’s concerned gaze directed towards her, Yaki laughed. “Have fun! I’ll head back soon, too. Don’t worry.”

Actor waved goodbye hastily as Kuroha pulled her away towards the exit. His Harley was parked right outside, and he tossed her a spare helmet. 

“Let’s take a detour before I take you home,” he said. “There’s something I want to show you.”

Actor nodded, and as the city lights flashed by on their way back, she took a deep breath. Something about life was different; it was refreshing, a little easier for her to breathe. She wasn’t sure if it was just an illusion, but she felt more at ease than she ever had. Leaning her face against his back, she admired the city nightlife that flashed by in her surroundings. They approached a building she didn’t recognize, but she didn’t protest as Kuroha led the way inside. They took the elevator to the top floor and walked up another flight of stairs that led to the rooftop. 

The scenery that met her eyes was breathtaking. In the distance, she saw all the multicolored lights of the city, each one shining with a vibrance that was unparalleled. The stars that were usually hidden by the smog also revealed themselves, illuminating the night sky with their shine. At this height, she could see the city she grew to love beneath her, stretching on for miles, and in that moment, nothing was more magical than this. 

“It’s pretty, isn’t it?” Kuroha’s voice brought her back to reality. He appeared next to her with two bottles of Ramune and handed one to her as he sat down near the edge. “I found this place in middle school. It’s my secret base of some sort; you’re the first person to know about this place.”

“It’s great,” said Actor, taking a sip of the refreshing beverage as she admired the landscape in front of her. “Never knew that the city was so beautiful until now.”

Kuroha stared at her for a second before putting down his Ramune. “How come you trust me? I know there’s been many people fanning the fires around you recently.”

“I don’t know,” Actor admitted. “I definitely didn’t want anything to do with you at first, since I’ve heard many of the rumors about you. But somehow we started getting closer, and I was really torn about what I wanted to do, so I ran away from it, like always. But I knew deep down that being with you made me feel like… well, myself. Even though it feels like I don’t know anything about you at times, I wanted to trust the real Kuroha I knew, the one nobody else knew.”

“Then ask away,” said Kuroha. “What do you want to know?”

Actor felt her face heat up at his intent gaze. “Well… What do you like about Ene?”

Kuroha shrugged. “She’s pretty.”

“That’s it?”

“I like her straightforwardness. She doesn’t hold back her harsh words and speaks her mind loud and proud. For the most part.” He took a sip of his drink before continuing. “I first knew her as my brother’s best friend. Didn’t think much about her. But when I saw how she treated me with harshness and was a different person in front of my brother… It made me want to win her over.”

“I can see that,” said Actor, thinking about all the times she had seen her sister with Konoha. 

“I actually confessed to her before.”

“You what ?”

“It was last year, I think,” said Kuroha with a wistful smile on his face. “She thought it was a joke. Or some sort of prank. Almost punched me in the face for it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” said Kuroha. “It’s not a problem anymore. But that was probably why I hated seeing you run away from all your problems. I’m more of a ‘attack your problems head on’ type of person, you know, so it was frustrating to watch. If you don’t try, you’ll never know if you’ll succeed or not. For anything.”

“You’re right,” said Actor, sighing. “I did well in abandoning that habit today though, didn’t I?”

“Definitely made me proud there,” said Kuroha, laughing. “But I was half serious about what I said. Why would you trust someone like me? You know the rumors and the trouble that follow me. I don’t want to get you involved. So you don’t get hurt.”

“I create enough trouble for you anyways. You’ve helped me a lot with my job. Besides, we’re supposed to get involved in each other’s matters. Because we’re friends.”

Kuroha looked surprised. “Friends, huh?” he murmured. “Never got that before.”

“What do you mean? You do have friends.”

“The closest people were probably the other AZAMI members. We’re not really friends. Not every group functions like the Blindfold Gang.”

“What about the girl that came with you? Yaki?”

“Oh, her?” Kuroha shook his half-empty bottle of Ramune before continuing. “She’s the closest I have to a friend from the gang, I guess. We talk occasionally, but not too much. And her real name’s Ayane. We go by codenames of some sort created by our leader.”

“So yours is… Saeru?” Actor asked, remembering what Yaki had called Kuroha. 

He nodded. “I don’t like it very much, so I don’t really use it. Sounds like a girl’s name.”

“How did you join them?”

“Been a fighter since I was young. Unlike Haruka back then, I wasn’t a good kid. Leader and I go way back, so it was almost automatic that I joined when she started the gang.”

“I considered joining the Blindfold Gang back when it was just created,” said Actor. “But in the end, I decided not to. I’m not the best at fighting, since I’ve always been running away instead. I’m pretty happy with my job right now, anyways.”

“Don’t worry. If anyone else tries to hurt you because of your job, I’ll be there to help you.”

“For real?”

Kuroha smiled as he held up his drink. “Isn’t that what friends are for?”

Actor laughed. For the first time, she felt as if she saw a little deeper into Kuroha’s heart, and as the sound of the bottles clinking echoed throughout the air, she smiled at the thought of this unconventional friendship. 

“Cheers. To our friendship.”

Chapter Text

“You probably won’t live past sixteen.”

What hurt him the most was not the contents of his father’s words, but the nonchalant tone his father used when answering the question. But then again, what did he expect? His father was a straightforward person, never the one to tell white lies in consideration of his feelings. The answer wasn't that much of a surprise, either; he himself expected just as much, give or take a few from the exact number of years he had left to live. He was a timed bomb, the seconds left on his clock ticking away ruthlessly, relentlessly. He'd live in fear, anxiously anticipating the inevitable, until one day, he'll explode, and it'll scar the people dear to him; he'd been dreading that sort of ending for years now.

Ever since his childhood, he had been surrounded by white. The walls around him held not a speck of dust, and the blinds that shut him away from the outside world held no color. He oftentimes stared into the white ceiling above him and when he had enough, he would bring the white blankets over his head and drift off to sleep, ignoring the words of the doctors in white robes. His world was monochrome, and he yearned for some color.

Perhaps that was why he started drawing, to fulfill his unrealistic desires of living to the fullest in the outside world. He captured his daydreams and nightmares onto the white pages of his sketchbook, doing everything he could to experience living to the best of his abilities. But he knew that time was slowly ticking away, and all he could do was pray for a miracle.

Maybe god really answered to his prayers; his conditions improved so much that he was allowed to attend high school full time. He even joined a gang of delinquents. He spent his time around his best friends and good food; what more could he ask for? Life was like a daydream, filled with everything he ever wanted.

And the price he had to pay? Waking up from it.

“Kuro! Let’s stop fighting. Please?”

His brother let out a cold laugh as he took another step forward, swinging at Konoha’s face with all his might. “You really think that’s gonna work?” said Kuroha, sneering.

Konoha took a step back just in time to dodge the attack. “Come on, we’re brothers. We shouldn’t have to fight like this.”

“You’re so naive,” Kuroha hissed. “It’s disgusting to watch.”

Konoha was well aware of that, but was it wrong to not want to fight your own twin brother? The two were in rival gangs, but to Konoha, Kuroha was still his brother. He knew that his friends had a natural dislike for Kuroha (after all, there were some things Kuroha definitely shouldn’t have done in the past), and there wasn’t anything he could do to lessen the rivalry.

The two gangs met coincidentally on the streets after school, full members and all, which was a rare occasion, considering how AZAMI’s members were more like lone wolves than a tight family. It didn’t take long for casual taunts to turn into punches and kicks, and soon, the gangs started fighting. As usual, Kuroha made it his mission to target Konoha, and Konoha had no choice but to play along.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” said Konoha as he blocked another of Kuroha’s punches with his forearms.

Kuroha scoffed. “I don’t think you have to worry about that,” he said. “Nobody has ever seriously injured me before. My name isn’t feared for nothing. Come on, take a punch or two at me. You always stick to defense, and it’s insulting.”

“When did you become like this? You’re like a whole different person now.”

“I’ve always been like this,” sneered Kuroha. “This is the real me.”

“This isn’t you,” Konoha insisted. “We were close back then. We were friends. How did things end up like this?”

“Things are different now. There’s nothing anyone can do about it.”

“Why do you hate me?”

“Because you were always better,” said Kuroha, his voice laced with pain. “I knew it. Our parents knew it. Everyone around us knew it. The only person who lived on unknowingly like an idiot was you.”

“That’s not true.”

“Shut up, you know it’s true. Isn’t it time for you to wake up to reality?”

Konoha’s vision began to blur, and he barely dodged Kuroha’s next attack. A fire burned within his chest, igniting his lungs and forcing the remaining oxygen out of his windpipe. He bit his lip and blocked Kuroha’s punch, stumbling backward as he did.

“Oh? What, too much of a shock to you?” Kuroha taunted. “Too weak to continue? Guess I’m the better one, after all.”

But Konoha was in no state to be affected by his words. He had to focus all of his attention on breathing in an attempt not to pass out. He immediately knew what the familiar feeling was, but he couldn’t accept it. There was no way it would be that; he was supposed to be all healed and suitable for a normal life. The world around him spun, and the pain overwhelmed him.

Sensing this opportunity, Kuroha swung at Konoha’s shoulder. Frankly, Konoha felt no pain from the blow; the pain in his chest was too immense that it paralyzed him completely, and as he gasped for air, his consciousness left him, and he sank to the ground.

He woke up to the sight of a white ceiling, a sight more familiar than anything else. Slowly, he managed to sit up and examine his surroundings. The sharp pain in his chest had ebbed away, retreating to a lesser intensity, but still present. He took a deep breath and leaned back against the headboard. It was the hospital, again. And he hated it.

“It happened again, didn’t it…” he murmured to himself.

“It sure did.”

A cold voice echoed throughout the room with a bone-chilling calmness and emotionlessness. Konoha would recognize that voice anywhere, and he looked up, shocked at its presence.

“Father… You’re here.”

“Do you think I had a choice?” His father stood against the wall, and as he observed Konoha, he sighed. “The hospital called me up during a meeting. I had to come and take care of your insurance and bills.”

Konoha grip on the blanket tightened. “I’m sorry to have inconvenienced you.”

Again, his father sighed. “It can’t be helped,” he said, looking out the window.

Konoha hated that sigh. It seemed as if with that one exhale, his father let all his disappointment and annoyance towards his son be known to the world. Ever since Konoha was young, his father would sigh every time he was sent to the hospital or even remotely tried actually living, shaking his head at the ridiculousness of Konoha’s wish to be just a normal boy.

“So… What did the doctors say?” asked Konoha, closing his eyes and expecting the worst.

“It’s just your usual problem, but there’s only one solution for you right now,” said his father. “If you want to keep living you’d have to get surgery, but it’s risky and if it doesn’t go well, you’ll die. But if you don’t take it, you’re only going to have a few years left, and there’s nothing we can do for you at that point.”

There it was again. His father spoke to him calmly and emotionlessly, as if his son’s life or death wouldn’t affect him at all. Konoha could only smile to himself painfully; in the years Konoha hadn’t seen him, his father had never changed, and Konoha would never see him change.

“I see,” said Konoha. At this point, he wasn’t even surprised about news like this. He was just waking up from his daydream, after all; this was his reality. “Then I guess I’d have to take that risk, wouldn’t I?”

“If you live, you need to quit that rowdy group of rebellious teenagers of yours.”

Eyes wide, Konoha stared at his father, wishing, praying that he had heard him wrong. “What?”

“You heard me,” said his father, still no sign of emotion in his voice. “You need to stop embarrassing yourself and the Kokonose name. That ‘Blindfold Gang’ nonsense needs to be put to an end. I don’t understand why you would surround yourself with people like that. They’re an embarrassment to society; do you want to be associated with that? Plus, think about your own health. Do you think you can continue to live like that? You saw what happened today.”

“But—”

“Haruka.” His father’s stern voice uttered Konoha’s real name, and immediately, Konoha felt powerless against the adult who dictated his life. “You’re being ridiculous.”

“Shut up, old man.”

A voice identical to Konoha’s uttered these words with a tone of distaste that Konoha would never use. Konoha found himself staring at a face identical to his, but oh, so different at the same time.

“Kuroha,” said his father, sighing. “Don’t speak to your elders like that.”

Kuroha scoffed. “I’m not going to show respect for anyone who doesn’t show respect for me, and definitely not to someone like you.”

“Is that any way to address your father?”

“Oh, I thought you said I’m not you son, Father,” said Kuroha, sarcasm dripping from his words. “I’m sorry, but you’re the one being ridiculous. Who do you think you are to force your stupid ideals on us? I’m tired of your bullshit.”

His father checked his watch and sighed once again. “This is a waste of time. I’m heading back to my office. Haruka, think about what I said. The doctors will come check up on you in a bit.” Without another word, he left the hospital room, leaving the two brothers to stare at each other.

Konoha awkwardly looked at his brother, whose eyes followed their father with a gaze of disgust. The last time he saw Kuroha, they were fighting in the streets as part of rival gangs. He could barely trace back to the last time they had a proper conversation — it felt like an eternity ago that the two would enjoy spending time together like brothers instead of the current situation, where one harbored strong feelings of hate towards the other. Konoha never hated his brother, even when he walked out of the Kokonose family a few years ago, wanting nothing to do with them ever again. He was surprised that Kuroha even showed up and managed to breathe the same air as their father without going insane.

“Are you going to die?” asked Kuroha after a moment of awkward silence.

“That’s… straightforward. But I didn’t expect anything less of you,” said Konoha, laughing. “I hope not, obviously. I’ll have to talk to the doctors later to find out the specifics.

“The old man must hope that I was in this position instead,” said Kuroha quietly.

“Why?”

“Are you stupid?” Kuroha’s eyebrows were arched in disbelief. “You heard him five years ago. According to him, I’m the son that’s ruining the family name by embarrassing all of us.”

“I’m sure he didn’t mean that.”

“As always, you’re so naive,” said Kuroha, rolling his eyes.

“I guess so, but in the best case scenario, neither of us dies,” said Konoha, laughing. “Sorry. Is that disappointing?”

“Don’t get me wrong,” said Kuroha. “I don’t like you, but I’m not heartless to the point that I wish death on you.”

“That’s good to hear.”

“What, did you actually think I wanted you to die?”

“Honestly, the idea might have crossed my mind a few times,” said Konoha, laughing. “But I hoped that wasn’t the case. Because I wanted to make up with you before that.”

At this, Kuroha looked away. “Ridiculous,” he said. “I’ve texted Actor that you’re doing okay, and she should have relayed the message to your friends by now.”

“Thanks, Kuro.”

Kuroha paused before staring back into Konoha’s eyes.

“You better not die, Haruka.”

The surgery was scheduled for next week, and Konoha stayed in the hospital until then. In a flash, it felt like he was transported back to his old life, the one he was used to — he spent his days staring at the window, admiring the outside world he so briefly was a part of. In the depths of the night, he lay wide awake as the deafening silence swallowed him whole.

The only things he looked forward to during the week was visits from the Blindfold Gang. His friends made sure to keep him company whenever they could, oftentimes coming with presents, food, and stories. They didn’t all come at the same time, in consideration of everyone’s schedules and the other patients in the hospital.

Shintaro, Ayano, and Ene visited him first. As the seniors of the group, they were greatly close-knit and knew each other before the gang even came into existence. Ayano excitedly talked about various occurrences at school while Shintaro added on occasionally. The four of them played games on Ene’s Nintendo Switch, and before they realized it, then sun had set and they had to start heading back.

The next day, Hibiya arrived alongside, to Konoha’s utter surprise, Hiyori, who immediately skipped school and bought train tickets to come to their city upon the news of Konoha’s hospitalization. Hiyori immediately launched into stories about her city, and Konoha was more than happy to learn about the world beyond his reach. Hibiya stayed silent most of the time, only interjecting periodically, but it was obvious even to Konoha that the two freshmen in front of him were much better friends than before.

When Kido, Seto, and Kano visited, Kido brought him a large portion of her cooking. Konoha was more than happy to dig in; he loved their leader’s cooking, and it tasted like home and the memories of the times he wholeheartedly enjoyed. The four of them played Old Maid all afternoon, with Kano getting beat up by Kido often for his perfect bluffing.

Marry and Momo brought him flowers from the shop Seto worked part-time at. The three of them watched movies while devouring the snacks Momo brought from their collection at home. Afterwards, Momo begged him to teach her algebra, and Konoha was more than happy to help.

Ene visited him again, alone this time. The two had been friends since freshman year, where they spent a year in the special needs classroom, just the two of them. Konoha had just had his surgery that allowed him to venture out beyond the constraints of the hospital room, attending school for the first time in a very long time. Out of concern for his being, the school put him in the class to make sure he was being taken care of.

That’s where he met Ene — no, Takane back then. At first, Konoha was scared of her; she showed a general disinterest in everyone around her, and Konoha thought he would end the school year without any friends. But no, he was wrong. The two got along extremely well, and Konoha discovered a whole new side of Ene that she hid under her sharp exterior. Although she always acted irritated and angry, underneath that scowl she hid how kind and sweet she truly was.

He wanted to break her walls, to truly understand her, to see a side of her she showed him and him only. He wanted to stay close to her, to hold her tight, to spend the rest of his life with her, no matter how short it was destined to be. He wanted to be her number one. Perhaps this was what people called… love?

Konoha never yearned to fall in love — after all, how could he, when all he could do was cause destruction to those close to him if, when, he met his end? But how could he stop himself from wanting love, from wanting her? The thought of telling her rarely crossed his mind; at least, he couldn’t afford to burden her as he was in this state. But at the same time, he could barely stop his love from overflowing within every word, every gaze, every movement. He felt lost, but maybe even more so, he was scared.

“Aren’t you scared, Haruka?”

Ene’s question brought him back to reality. Studying the girl’s somber expression, Konoha’s breath hitched in his throat. “Scared of what?”

“Are you stupid?” Ene hissed in frustration. “The surgery. Didn’t the doctors say that… the chances of success are slim?”

Konoha gave a quiet laugh. “I know that, Takane. But I’ve got to take the chances, don’t I? I can’t lose everything I have right now; I love my life so much. And I can’t lose you.”

“You’re an idiot,” spluttered Takane, ignoring her heating face. “You’ve always been so kind. Maybe it would’ve been better for you if you weren’t a delinquent like us.”

“That’s not true.” Konoha answered before he could even think about it. “Living is more than simply breathing; it’s spending time with the people you love and doing the things that make you happy. And with all of you, I am able to truly be myself. I can’t even start to thank you all.”

“But what if it doesn’t go well?”

“It’s true that I’m scared. I don’t want to die. But now, it’s all up to fate. All we can do is pray for a miracle.”

“I always lived believing that miracles are named so because they don’t happen,” said Ene, biting her lip. “But this time, I would do anything to make it happen.”

On the day before the surgery, to Konoha’s surprise, Actor showed up, dragging a reluctant-looking Kuroha into the hospital room with her. Konoha knew the two were acquaintances and decent friends, but to be able to force Kuroha to do something he didn’t particularly like doing required a friendship closer than that. Konoha was happy for their friendship, of course, but he couldn’t help but wonder how the two started hanging out together. The city’s most feared delinquent and the underground information broker… What a strange pair.

“If you want to visit him, just visit him alone,” complained Kuroha as Actor excitedly made him sit down next to her near Konoha’s bed. “It’s not like you’re doing anything illegal.”

Actor gave him an annoyed look before sitting down. “Shut up! Have you just never visited him since he got hospitalized?” Sighing, she turned to Konoha instead. “How are you doing?”

“I’m doing fine,” said Konoha, laughing. “Thanks for visiting me.”

“Of course we would! Right, Kuroha?”

“Yes, yes, whatever you say,” said Kuroha, rolling his eyes.

“You’re not busy anyway.”

Konoha couldn’t help but laugh at their conversation. It wasn’t common that Kuroha acted this way around others; he had always been a lone wolf, and to see him allowing himself to become friends with someone made Konoha happy.

“Anyway, Konoha! I’ve always been fascinated about the differences between you and Kuroha — you guys are twins, but you’re also completely different. You guys must have some interesting memories together,” said Actor.

Konoha looked at Kuroha before answering. He knew that Kuroha didn’t necessarily stop disliking him yet, and perhaps telling stories of them from the past would make him angrier. But Kuroha simply shrugged and leaned back in his chair, giving him a silent “OK” signal to continue.

“We’ve had our share of memories together, since we grew up together,” said Konoha. Closing his eyes, he thought back to his fondest memories of his twin brother. “Ever since I was young, I had been physically weak and never really got to leave the hospital. Kuroha was different; he was healthy and was always in the outside world. When I was hospitalized, I remember he would occasionally sneak into my hospital room at night and bring me all the food and games I couldn’t enjoy. We stayed up all night talking, and we got caught many times. Even so, he wouldn’t give up; unlike me, he was never scared of anything and always had the freedom I wish I had.”

Actor looked towards Kuroha, who, at this point, looked slightly embarrassed. “You were so much nicer back then. What happened to you?” Actor asked.

“Shut up, Enomoto,” said Kuroha, looking away.

“It was really fun back then,” said Konoha, laughing. “That went on for around a year. It was probably when we were ten, maybe eleven. That was probably one of my fondest memories of my childhood. Since I was never able to go outside, Kuroha was the embodiment of the outside world I knew.”

“You were pathetic,” said Kuroha, his lips tugging upwards into a faint smile. “Ridiculous to watch. If I didn’t save you somehow, who knows how you would’ve turned out.”

“Hospital food was absolutely terrible; I don’t know how I would’ve survived without those snacks you snuck in.”

“I still don’t know how you ate so much in such a short amount of time. I had to pretend that I ate all of it and that I was always hungry so I wouldn’t get your stupid ass caught.”

“The food was good, though! How could you not finish it so quickly?”

“Don’t think they did anything for your health, though.”

“I was happy though. I was really happy.”

Kuroha rolled his eyes. “Then your conditions worsened, and it became unrealistic to keep up what we were doing.”

“You’re right. For a few years, I was in a very unstable state. We didn’t know if I was going to live for another few months or if I was going to die on the spot. My father told me on my twelfth birthday that I probably wouldn’t live past sixteen.”

“That’s… not a very good thing to say so casually,” said Actor softly.

“Fuck yeah it wasn’t,” said Kuroha, clicking his tongue. “That old man knows nothing of comforting people, or even being remotely empathetic. When Mom died, he barely said anything to us.”

“I’m sure he was too stuck in his own grief to think about anything else,” said Konoha. “But I’m sure he didn’t mean any harm. When I turned fifteen, I had a big surgery that miraculously seemed to cure all my problems. I was finally able to attend school, and I looked forward to high school more than anyone else. But only a few weeks after I got out of the hospital, that happened.”

At this, Kuroha’s gaze visibly darkened, and Konoha didn’t know if he should continue. It wasn’t a good topic for Kuroha, one he certainly never addressed ever again, and perhaps talking about it would further provoke him. But Kuroha said nothing, and cautiously, Konoha continued.

“Father and Kuroha had a big disagreement. He didn’t approve of how Kuroha lived his life, picked fights, and hung around ‘bad influences.’ I don’t know what happened to my father that day, but he said some very… harsh things. As a result, Kuroha left the house entirely and never spoke to our father again unless it was absolutely necessary.”

“Yeah, that tends to happen when he tells me to kill myself,” said Kuroha, scoffing. “Point is, that old man and I will never see eye to eye, and that’s where everything ended. No more happy memories. Of course it was the adult who ruined it for us children.”

“I do miss them, though,” said Konoha, a sad laugh escaping from his throat. “Those times back when you didn’t hate me.”

“Kuroha doesn’t hate you!” said Actor, smacking in the arm. “Right?”

“She’s right,” said Kuroha after a long pause. “I don’t hate you.”

Konoha was surprised to hear it straight from Kuroha, especially in such a straightforward manner. “Kuro, I—”

“I have to leave now,” said Kuroha, cutting Konoha off before he could say anything in response. “Actor, if you still want a ride back, you better come with me now.”

“Ah, wait for me, you idiot!” Actor sighed at the sight of Kuroha already walking away out of the room. “See you, Konoha. I hope you get well soon.”

Konoha nodded. He smiled at the sight of Actor running to catch up with Kuroha and the two walking off, Actor teasing him about something while Kuroha batted her hand away and quickened his pace. Looking at them, Konoha couldn’t help but envy his brother.

If he could be healthy and alive like him, would he be less a burden to everyone?

A soft tapping on his window snapped him out of a daze. For a second, Konoha thought he was hallucinating. It was midnight, after all, and the surgery was to begin in a few hours. Konoha, however, was wide awake; staring into the glint of the moon, he couldn’t help but feel a wave of fear wash over him.

Was today going to be his last?

He thought that at this point, he had accepted his fate. If this were years ago, he wouldn’t be surprised if he had little to no time left. But now that the countdown was getting closer to its finale, the fear started to creep in.

The tapping on the window grew louder; there was no way this was a hallucination. Konoha got out of bed and opened the window, wondering if it was a lost bird or some other form of nature. Instead, he stared into his own face, who smirked.

“Let me in,” he said simply.

Konoha moved to the side and Kuroha climbed into his room. Sitting down in the chair next to the bed, Kuroha set a plastic bag onto the bed, gesturing for Konoha to open it. Konoha did as he was told and immediately stared at Kuroha in surprise. The bag was filled with his favorite snacks, the same ones the twins would share in secret during their childhood.

“Kuro… What is this?” asked Konoha, dumbfounded.

“Can’t you tell?” said Kuroha lazily. “It’s for you. Snacks. I know you like these.”

“Thanks… But why are you here?”

“What, should I have not come?” asked Kuroha, raising an eyebrow. “If you want, I can leave right now.”

“That’s not what I meant. You know what I mean.”

Kuroha sighed and looked away before answering. “I thought about today,” he said. “I came to the conclusion that it would be better for the both of us if I stopped avoiding your efforts of reconciling.”

“I…”

“Don’t say anything just yet. Just listen to me,” said Kuroha. “Growing up, I always knew that our parents liked you better. You were smarter, kinder, and a better person than I was. Our parents knew that, and so did I. The only person who never thought so was you — and that made me even angrier. I couldn’t simply hate you like I wanted to, because you never treated me badly.”

“I’d never treat you badly, Kuro.”

“I know, and that infuriated me. Everyone was disappointed in me, and every time I messed up or got into a fight, the old man would always, always, ask me why I couldn’t be more like you. And of course, he would pick a time when you weren’t around to say this to me. To him, I was a disappointment, and you were limited by your illness. If you had a healthy body, he would have never even bothered to look at me.”

“I never knew that happened to you.”

“It’s not your fault, and I’ve known that all this time,” said Kuroha, sighing. “But when that thing happened with… Dad, I was furious that you stayed silent. Because you always treated me well, I assumed that you didn’t know of his secret attitude towards me. But when he said all that vile shit in front of both of us, you did nothing to defend me. That led me to believe you’ve been fake this whole time and that I was all alone once again. That was the final straw that made me truly believe that nobody in that household was on my side, and so I left.”

In a flash, Konoha was transported back in time, and he saw the events four years ago unfold before his eyes once again. He had never seen either of his family members like this before; their gazes were murderous, and they hurled not only harsh words and insults at each other, but also their fists and whatever they could get their hands on. The impact of their father’s palm against Kuroha’s cheek made Konoha gasp, but Kuroha only scoffed.

“Finally showing your true colors?” Kuroha sneered as he stood his ground. “You’re a little braver than I thought you were. I thought you wanted to preserve your ‘holy father-like’ image in front of dear Haruka, who never does anything wrong.”

“How dare you speak to your father in that tone,” their father spat back. “You’re hopeless. Just looking at you disgusts me; I wish you’d disappear already.”

“You think I’m disgusting?” Kuroha let out a cold laugh. “Adults like you are just the same. You think you’re so much better than I am, but really, who are you to talk? Do you think you’ve been a good parent all these years? Hating your own son for living life the way he wants to? Beating him to stop him from being around his friends, because they’re ‘bad influences?’ Really, what kind of monster are you?”

“You’re not my son.” Their father spoke through gritted teeth as he glared at Kuroha. “You’re a filthy monster. I wish you would die already. Maybe that way, the world would become a better place.”

Kuroha didn’t respond. Without a word, he went back into his room and re-emerged with a suitcase and a backpack. Before he headed out the door, he glanced at Konoha, who had sat in the middle of the fight and was too stunned to speak. Scoffing, Kuroha closed the door on the Kokonose household and never returned.

“I… I didn’t know.” Konoha was stunned beyond words. “I was too shocked to say anything. But that didn’t mean I didn’t want to help you.”

“I know, I know,” said Kuroha. “Maybe I stopped blaming you a long time ago, but I just didn’t want to think about it. Actor kept pestering me to solve things out with you, telling me that I would feel better once I did. And truthfully, I do feel more relieved this way.”

“I’m sorry, Kuro. I should’ve known what you were going through.”

“It’s fine. It’s all in the past now. I’m good with how I’m living right now, anyways.”

“So are we good now?”

“Yeah, I hope so.” Kuroha smiled ever so slightly. “Now that we got that out of the way, are you good?”

“Why?”

“You know, surgery tomorrow. You scared?”

“Honestly, I am,” said Konoha. “If it doesn’t go well, then I won’t be able to spend time with everyone again.”

“They kept telling you that you wouldn’t live past sixteen, but here you are. I think you’re blessed enough to be able to live a long life.”

“Kuro… If I die, how am I going to tell Takane that I love her?”

Kuroha paused before staring right into Konoha’s eyes. “That’s why you’re going to live. You’re going to live and tell her yourself one day.”

“I guess we’ll find out in a few hours.”

The memories before the surgery were a blur to him. All he remembered was his skyrocketing fear that seemed to reach new heights by the second and losing consciousness from the anesthesia.

When he regained consciousness, he stared up at the white ceiling, catching his breath. He was alive. The searing pain in his chest had disappeared altogether, and replacing it was a sense of calmness he had never experienced before. Before he could think any further, a knock from the door interrupted his thoughts.

“KONOHA!”

A chorus of screaming and excited outbursts flooded the room as all of his friends stumbled into the room. The gang rushed to hug him as they cried, excitedly celebrating his return. Out of the corner of his eye, Konoha saw Kuroha leaning against the wall, smiling faintly at the scene in front of him. The twins’ gazes met for a second, and the two of them smiled at each other. Silently, Kuroha mouthed:

“Welcome back, Haruka.”

Chapter Text

“Kisaragi? Oh, you mean the older one, right?”

These words were some of her earliest memories, and they plagued her childhood like no other. For as long as she could remember, she lived in the shadows of her brother’s success; her parents never looked at her, no matter how hard she tried. Her brother was better in every area possible; with his intelligence, he didn’t even have to put forth any effort to be better than her, than most people. He was what the world called a “genius,” and she should have known better.

Maybe she knew deep down that there was nothing she could do to win against her brother. But if she kept trying, kept fighting towards victory with such grounded acceptance, wouldn’t she just look like an idiot? She had no choice but to push aside the reality buried deep within her just so that she wouldn’t succumb to the despair of knowing she will never shine as bright as her brother.

She never spoke of her inferiority complex; for how could she, when her parents already saw her as less than her brother? She never blamed him for being better; in fact, she was always supportive of his achievements. But she would always feel that rotten feeling of envy and jealousy eat away at her heart every time she praised him, and she hated herself for it. She did everything she could to cover up such an ugly part of herself, and she did her best to captivate the attention of everyone around her.

After all, she just wanted to be seen.

The club was where she spent many of her Friday nights at, getting absolutely wasted. The strobing of the lights did nothing for her sobriety, or lack thereof, and she often lost herself as she stared into the flashes of blue and orange and purple and green that seemed to always settle on red before she turned her attention back to the shot glasses in front of her. She paralyzed her nerves by downing shots after shots of tequila then turning to the dance floor as the music blasted in her ears.

She knew that sixteen was young, too young to be at a place as messy as the club, but she liked the messiness, and the night, too, was young, right? It was a Friday night, anyway, and in those few hours she spent partying, she felt alive.

Momo was always the center of attention at the club; she captivated many of the guys’ attention, but she always stuck close to her friends. She was the only sophomore; many of her friends were in her brother’s grade, and they didn’t hang out much at school, as Momo was always with the gang. At the club, however, they danced the night away together and protected each other.

The gang never went with Momo, but that was understandable. They didn’t have fake IDs, for one, and none of them were the “loud music and getting drunk” type. Kido appreciated some good music, but she was more of a “indie band at a live house” type of person. Seto, Marry, Ayano, and Konoha were too wholesome to be present at a place like this. Shintaro and Ene were sworn shut-ins that would literally perish in an environment as loud and populated as this. Hibiya was too young and Momo wasn’t about to be a bad influence like that, and even if he were older, he would just shake his head at the crazy crowd. The only person she managed to drag along a few times was Kano, who did enjoy the atmosphere and the alcohol and would accompany her occasionally.

Today, Kano was absent, and as usual, Momo lost herself in the crowd. She was aware that people stared at her at times, and she was fine with it. In fact, she welcomed it; she couldn’t help but smile inwardly whenever she felt the gazes she captivated land upon her. It was a while after midnight, however, and it was around time to head back.

“Excuse me!”

They were only a few steps from the exit of the club when a voice from behind stopped them. It was a woman in her late 20s, and involuntarily, Momo tensed up. She was still a minor, after all, and was not supposed to be let into the club. She had never been caught before, since her friends all had connections and she looked rather mature for her age. What if this woman was a manager, and they would get into big trouble?

“What’s wrong?” Nicole Fujimura was the one who responded. As the “leader” of their little group and the most popular girl at school, Nicole was known, respected, and even feared by many students, even their friends. She was the Regina George of their school, but much less of a bully. As a sophomore, Momo literally had no right to be hanging around someone like Nicole originally, but Nicole reached out to Momo and asked if she wanted to join them outside of school; it was probably because of Momo’s career on Instagram.

“Oh, I’m sorry if this is sudden,” said the woman who approached them. “My name is Chihiro Otonashi, and I am an idol manager at YH Entertainment, and I was just wondering if this young lady is signed to any management company yet and if she was interested in being an idol!”

At first, Momo thought the woman was talking to Nicole. It would come as no surprise for Nicole to receive another offer to join the entertainment world; after all, she was simply beautiful. Momo was beyond envious of Nicole’s natural blue eyes, long eyelashes, and wavy, blonde hair; her soft features blended Japanese and French beauty perfectly, and oh my god, Momo knew that if she looked like that, she’d be smiling in her sleep.

But then, she noticed how her friends all stared at her, and so was the manager woman. It took a few seconds for something to click in her brain, and when it did, she looked back and forth between her friends and the manager woman. “Wait, me?”

“Yes, you! Are you interested?”

Momo was at a loss of words. She did occasionally look into girl groups when their music videos trended on YouTube; she marveled at the vocal and dance abilities of BLACKPINK and Mamamoo, but never did she ever dream of becoming like them or participating in the same entertainment world as them. She was never a choir or dance team girl, but an opportunity like this doesn’t come all the time.

If she became an idol, would everyone finally look at her?

“Here’s my business card,” said Chihiro, handing a thin piece of paper to Momo. “If you’re interested, please give me a call.”

As Chihiro walked away, Momo stared at the business card. It was still hard for her to believe what had just happened; it seemed like a dream come true, almost too good to be true. Someone saw her, specifically her, and wanted her to be known to the world. Isn’t that what she always wanted? For someone to notice her?

“Way to go, Momo-chan!” Nicole said as she gave her a big hug. “Remember us when you’re famous, babe!”

“Seriously, that’s impressive!” said one of her other friends. “I honestly thought we were gonna be exposed for being underage.”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Nicole, laughing. “I have connections. We won’t get busted. But that’s not the point right now! Our Momo-chan got scouted and we should all be proud. So what do you think?”

“I’m… honestly not sure if this is a dream or not.”

“Come on, it’s real! I’ll pinch you if you want to check!”

Momo laughed, and as they headed home, she couldn’t stop thinking about the offer she just received. She wanted to take it, but she was too tired to think straight. It was a problem that the her of tomorrow would have to think about instead.

Hangover mornings were never great, and this one was no exception. Luckily, it was a Saturday morning, so she had plenty of time to recover. Most of the gang was outside: Seto was at his part-time job, Marry and Hibiya were at the library, Ene and Konoha were at the arcade, and Kido was out for groceries. After the disgusting feeling in the stomach and the pain in her head faded to a minimum, she sat on the couch, staring at the business card she got last night. It still seemed like a dream to her, but now that she was sober, she had to accept that it was, without a doubt, real.

It wasn’t just a dream; it was a dream come true. For as long as she could remember, she wanted someone to look at her, notice her for things only she could do. But those things didn’t seem to exist, for there was always someone who could do it better close by. It was just natural; she knew it from the start. But that didn’t stop her from wishing, hoping, yearning for the attention.

And now, an opportunity was placed before her. Maybe it was god’s way of telling her that it was time. Maybe she should do as fate tells her to; it was a once in a lifetime opportunity, after all.

“Hey, what’s that you have there, Momo-chan?”

It was Kano. It was a little unusual to see him at the base just lounging around; Momo thought he’d be out wrecking mischief on people or something. She was hesitant on consulting him about the offer, since he seemed like someone who wouldn’t take things seriously. But after a moment’s consideration, she decided that he was probably worth trusting.

“I got scouted to be an idol yesterday when I was leaving the club,” she said. “The manager person gave me a business card.”

“Whoa, you got scouted?” said Kano, amazed. “Damn, that’s crazy! Oh my god, wait, was it some creepy dude? Are they, like, trustworthy?”

“No, it was a young woman and she—”

She was cut off by the sound of aluminum hitting the floor and a quiet curse of “oh, shit.” The two of them looked towards the source of the sound and saw Shintaro staring back at them. The puddle of coke spilling from the can he dropped was spreading by the second, and Shintaro sighed and grabbed tissues from the living room table to clean up the mess.

“Man, what are you doing?” said Kano, sighing but also trying to hold back a laugh at the same time. “Kido’s gonna be so mad at you when she gets back if she finds out.”

“I’d prefer if you didn’t tell her,” said Shintaro as he threw the soaked tissues away. “Besides, that’s not the point. Momo, what did you just say?”

“I uh, got scouted. To be an idol,” said Momo slowly.

“Are you… going to accept?” asked Shintaro.

Momo looked down at her hands, unable to bring herself to meet his intense gaze. She didn’t know why she had to feel guilty or like she was doing something wrong when she really didn’t do anything. At least not yet. “I don’t know. Maybe? Probably? You don’t get this sort of opportunity often. Or ever, really.”

Shintaro sighed louder than ever. He looked like he wanted to headbutt her, or himself. Or both, maybe. “So you’re telling me that you’re going to accept and become an idol? All of a sudden?”

“Is there anything wrong with that?”

“Momo. You… Are you for real?”

Momo furrowed her brows. “Why are you like this? What’s with the attitude? Can’t you just support your younger sister like you’re supposed to?”

Shintaro sighed again. “You have no background in singing or dancing, and it’s not like idols can debut immediately. They go through so much training for years; are you really willing to put forth all of that time and effort? It’s not an easy job, you know, and definitely not something you can just… decide to do without the determination.”

“What makes you think I’ll give up? I’ll work hard! I’ll do my best!”

“Momo… I’m not saying that you can’t do it, but that you shouldn’t. I’m not doubting your abilities or anything. It’s just… The entertainment world is beyond messy; you probably know that better than I do. You’d have to give up the life you have right now; quit the gang, take time away from school… You’d have to put forth so much effort into something that’s not guaranteed. Do you know how many people don’t get to debut and just end up wasting their time training for something they won’t get? What makes you think so naively that you’ll be different from everyone else?”

“Don’t lecture me like that! I think I can do it. Why are you being so negative about this?”

“It’s just… You know. The people you see at the top are only the tip of the iceberg; there’s way too many people being buried underneath the surface. It’s not like you have a magical ability to captivate other people’s attention or anything.”

Momo bit her lip. Those words stung, and she never wanted to hear them coming from someone else’s mouth, especially not her brother’s. “You’re right,” she said, a sad laugh escaping from her mouth. “I don’t. I don’t have that sort of ability to captivate other people’s attention. How could I forget? Thanks for reminding me.”

“That’s… not what I meant,” said Shintaro, wincing. He, too, probably noticed that he hit a sore spot. “I’m just saying that you shouldn’t jump into something like the entertainment world so blindly.”

“You’re right, you’re right. Of course you’re right; you’re always right. You’ve never been wrong in your entire life; how could I possibly expect Shintaro Kisaragi, the genius who’s always praised for being right, to understand me?”

“Goddamn it, Momo, would you just listen to me for once? For god’s sake, you’re making me sound like the unreasonable one here.”

“Oh, so I’m unreasonable for following my dreams. Thanks, brother, you really serve as a great example.”

“Being an idol isn’t even your dream! The job itself isn’t even what you really want.”

“Who are you to tell me what I want?” Momo yelled. “You’re unbelievable. Don’t talk like you know everything about me!”

“I’m saying all of this because I know what you want!” To her surprise, Shintaro yelled back at her just as loud. She rarely saw her brother seriously mad like this, and it honestly scared her a little. But she was too angry to feel anything other than burning hate right now, so she glared back at him.

“You don’t understand,” she said coldly. “You never have. You’ve always had the spotlight for as long as I remember, and you have no idea how I felt. Nobody understands how I felt. Don’t you dare tell me that you know what I want.”

With that, she stood up. Ignoring Kano, who winced and muttered “well, that’s awkward” under his breath, she didn’t forget to give her brother another glare before slamming the door behind her.

Shintaro Kisaragi may share the same blood as Momo Kisaragi, but he will never understand her pain.

She left the base in a fit of rage, but all she could do was walk around aimlessly as her mind filled with thoughts. In the past, she and her brother were relatively close; although he seemed cold and emotionless at times to others, he protected her, comforted her, and helped her to the best of his abilities. But starting from somewhere, sometime, they started to drift apart, and she no longer believed he understood her.

The more she thought about it, the more the tears threatened to spill from her eyes. She could do nothing to stop them from escaping, so they came cascading down her cheeks. She wore no makeup, only a hoodie and sweats paired with a messy bun, and as she crouched down into a ball on the sidewalk, she was aware that people stared at her only because of how much of a mess she looked like.

“Momo?”

She looked up mid-sob and into a familiar pair of red eyes, who stared back at her, surprised. It was Kido; she carried a few bags of groceries and was probably on the way back home. The moment she saw Kido, Momo felt the dam holding back all her sadness being lifted, and she practically threw herself at Kido, wailing as she did.

“Leader…” she hiccuped as she buried her face in Kido’s hoodie.

Kido was stunned for a few seconds before she hugged Momo back, smoothing out her hair as she whispered “there, there.” Once Momo’s wailing faded to a minimum, Kido led her to the nearby park, where they sat down on one of the benches.

“I have the iced tea that Marry asked for or Shintaro’s coke; which one do you want?” asked Kido as she dug through one of the grocery bags.

Hearing her brother’s name, Momo pouted. “I don’t want anything to do with him right now,” she said quietly.

Kido raised an eyebrow as she handed Momo the iced tea. “What happened all of a sudden?”

“I was scouted to be an idol yesterday, and I was telling Kano about it. My brother overheard, and he immediately started drilling me for being naive or whatever. Basically he just was very very disapproving and he didn’t want to support me at all.”

“An idol, wow. Isn’t that impressive? I don’t know why he was disapproving, either,” said Kido. “Usually, you two seem to be on pretty good terms.”

Momo bit her lip as she stared at the ground in front of her. “Leader, can I tell you a story?”

“You can tell me anything, anytime,” said Kido softly.

Momo closed her eyes as she retraced her memories back to the very beginning. Even after all this time, she still remembered everything as clear as ever; these were things she never told anyone, frankly because she never had any friends, but also because she didn’t want others to pity her. But she knew she could trust Kido, and maybe it was time for her to open up a little more.

“Ever since I was young, I was ordinary, while my brother was gifted. He was and still is what we call a “genius,” and of course, I was no match for him. He brought home grades with nothing lower than a hundreds, and he made our parents proud. They doted over him, praised him, looked at him and him only. ‘He’s going to accomplish great things in the future,’ they said. ‘He’s gonna go to Harvard, gonna save the world. He’s got that in store for him.’ He was the one who my parents boasted about to relatives and family friends, so much that they seemed to forget they had a daughter at all.

“I was practically non-existent. I can’t count how many times where I’ve wanted to talk to my parents, but they were busy with something that had to do with my brother. Whenever I messed up something, they would ask me, ‘why can’t you be more like Shintaro?’ I was never able to answer that question; even though I did my best all the time, it just never seemed like it was enough. I was never enough for them.

“I did try to compete against him at first, but it never worked. I wasn’t gifted with great intelligence, so I never scored very well on tests. I soon realized that it was pointless trying to compete against a genius; there was no way I would win against him. And then, the time I tried one last time to win against him ended… badly.”

Here, Momo took a deep breath and closed her eyes as the memories of that day resurfaced. These were things she never told anyone, and it still haunted her to this day. Letting out a breath shakily, she continued.

“There was one day when my family went to the beach together. I was young, maybe around eight or nine. My brother went for a swim, and my parents praised him for how far he was able to swim and how ‘fearless’ he seemed to be. I immediately proclaimed that I could do better than that and told them to watch, and without waiting for a response, I ran towards the water. I swam until I was alone in the water; I couldn’t see anyone around me, and the shoreline was far. My limbs were getting tired, and my teeth started to chatter from the cold. I started to panic; I wasn’t the best at swimming, and I really don’t know what gave me the confidence to swim out so far.

“My dad came out to find me, and we tried to swim back to the shore, but… The waves were getting too wild, and we got wiped out. I went unconscious, and when I woke up, I was told that… I was the only one who…”

A tear interrupted Momo’s story, and soon, another one followed. Kido pulled her into a tight embrace as Momo bit her lip, wishing the tears wouldn’t fall so easily.

“You don’t have to continue if you don’t want to,” said Kido softly.

Momo shook her head. “I’m okay. But… From that day onwards, I stopped comparing myself to my brother. I… I blamed it all on myself. If I hadn’t done that, then maybe things would be different. Maybe Dad wouldn’t have to…die. I hated myself for it; ‘if I was better, then this wouldn’t have happened,’ I thought to myself. ‘I’m not good enough.’ Slowly, I started to think that I wasn’t good enough for anything and that I was worthless, and maybe that made me crave attention even more. I just wanted someone to look at me, just me and not my brother. I just didn’t want to be invisible anymore. That’s why I started the Instagram influencer stuff. And why I go clubbing, and why I dress the way I do. And maybe that’s what I thought about when I got the idol offer. I thought that maybe this time, people will finally notice me.”

“I… didn’t know any of that.”

“Sorry for saying all this, and all of a sudden, too. It must be a lot to take in,” said Momo, a sad chuckle escaping from her lips. “I’ve never told anyone any of this, so I really don’t know what I’m looking for in a response, either.”

Kido smiled slightly. “I just think how it’s ironic,” she said softly.

“Why?”

“While you wanted to stand out to the people around you, I wanted to disappear really bad when I was younger.”

Momo stared at Kido. She realized that just like how Kido knew nothing about her struggles, she knew nothing of Kido’s struggles either. “What happened?” she asked quietly.

“My family used to be pretty wealthy; my father was a business man who owned a company, and we lived in a big mansion with maids and butlers; it’s the sort of thing you see in movies. But I was an illegitimate child; my mother was a nobody and she died giving birth to me, and I was immediately sent to my father’s place. From that day onwards, I was raised to be an heir to the Kido business and name, but everyone knew that I had no chance of actually inheriting anything. I was the dirty spot in my father’s past that he wanted to cover up but couldn’t.

“For years, rumors followed me everywhere. At the gala events we attended, I could see the disgusted gazes directed towards me from all these upper-class nobles, who thought I was too low in status to even breathe the same air as them. Even at my own house, the servants lowered their voices to hushed whispers whenever I was around, and some even refused to work for me. I felt sorry for existing, and I wanted to disappear. I wanted to be invisible, so that I could escape from all this.”

“I didn’t know any of that, either.”

“I haven’t been the best at opening up about things, either. Only Kano, Seto, and Aya-nee knew about it. When I was around eight, my father’s business failed, and in a fit of rage, he set fire to the house. I was the only one who survived. I had an older sister, and she was the only person who cared about me back then; I lost her in that fire. Only recently did I find out that her mother, my father’s wife, was alive as well, and she did everything she could to harass me. She literally tried to kill me.” At this, Kido let out a lighthearted chuckle.

“So that was what that note was talking about? The one about the fire?” asked Momo as realization dawned upon her.

“Yeah. She seemed to hate me for ruining her marriage.”

“And so that was why Kano-san was being so cautious during that time?”

“Yeah. That idiot went a little overboard, but I really do have to thank him.”

Momo couldn’t help but smile a little. “You and your siblings really are close, huh?”

“Well, Seto, Kano, and I go way back. I actually didn’t get along very well with them when I first met them; Seto’s constant use of honorific speech back then pissed me off because it reminded me of my upbringing, and Kano’s constant jokes and lies just made me want to beat him up. But now, I’m happy to say that we trust each other with everything. Seto’s like a real brother to me, but Kano… He’s…”

Momo raised an eyebrow at the implications of Kido’s words. “He’s… different?”

Kido’s face visibly reddened at Momo’s words. “Anyways! My point is that we’re close, but that doesn’t mean we always got along. But even if we don’t get along sometimes, that doesn’t mean we don’t all love each other very much. I’m sure Shintaro always wants the best for you, too.”

“I honestly thought that nobody understood me and that I was the only one who was suffering, but now, I see it’s super self-centered to think like that. Thanks for telling me all of this, Leader. Thanks for trusting me, too.”

“You trusted me with your story, too, so thanks for that as well.”

“Finally talking about it made me feel much better. It’s like a weight was lifted off of my shoulders,” said Momo, laughing.

“But that’s not all I wanted to talk about,” said Kido, looking into her eyes seriously. “I know your problem isn’t something you just fix overnight, but I don’t want you to feel like you’re worthless anymore. You are most definitely good enough, and we see you as you, not your brother or anyone else. We are your friends, your companions, and we will always be here for you. Always remember that, and come to us whenever you need anything.”

“Leader…” Momo felt the urge to cry once again. The girl in front of her was so strong, so kind, and she cared so much. Although Kido had really the opposite situation, she truly understood Momo, and Momo felt safer than she ever did.

“You can have bad days, and you can be sad. But never feel like you are alone.”

When Momo returned to the base, she saw Shintaro nervously pacing around the living room, looking stressed out. The two stared at each other for a bit before Momo walked up to him. Shintaro was silent, but he was clearly trying to format his words in his head.

“Come on, Shin, you better apologize,” said Kano.

Kido raised an eyebrow as she set down her bags of groceries on the dining table. “Kano, literally shut the fuck up.”

“What? He’s been practicing his apology for at least fifteen minutes now.”

Kido rolled her eyes as she grabbed Kano and pulled him back to his room, leaving the Kisaragi siblings to stare awkwardly at each other in a silence that was equally as awkward.

“Hey, uh… I really wasn’t very nice earlier,” said Shintaro, looking away. “I said some mean shit. I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry for yelling at you, too,” said Momo. “I know you don’t mean any harm.”

“That’s a relief,” said Shintaro, letting out a breath he was holding in. “So we’re not mad at each other anymore?”

“Yeah, we’re good.”

Shintaro nodded slowly. “Listen, if you really want to do it, I’m not gonna stop you,” he said. “I’ll support you, you know.”

“Ah, about that…” Momo smiled. “I’ve decided that I won’t do it.”

“Wait, what? Why? If it’s because of what I said, then—”

“No, it’s my own decision.” Momo sighed. “You’re right. I wanted to become an idol not because I liked singing and dancing or because I wanted to perform and be on stage. I wanted to do it because I wanted to stand out, to have the attention. I wanted other people to look at me; that’s all. If I became an idol for reasons like these, then wouldn’t it be disrespectful to the people who are actually passionate about it?”

“Are you sure? It is a once in a lifetime opportunity, like you said.”

“Yeah,” said Momo. “I’m sure.”

Shintaro looked away. “I was against it because I thought it would break you. Being an idol and fighting everyone for love and attention… I couldn’t see how that would be good for your mental health in any way. I don’t want you to suffer, you know.”

“You knew about it…?” She always thought Shintaro was oblivious of her struggles and that he would never understand how she felt; never did she expect him to be fully aware of them.

“About your inferiority complex? Yeah, how could I not? Besides, with how Mom and Dad acted, it’d be impossible to not feel that way. I was mad at them for treating you that way, too. Told them on multiple occasions, but they always brushed it off as me making a big deal out of it.”

Momo didn’t know what to say. All this time, she thought her brother never understood, but really, he did everything he could to help her. “Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me,” said Shintaro. “I couldn’t do enough. I’m sorry, Momo.”

Momo bit her lip as she forced back the all-too familiar sensation of tears forming. “Stop it, you’re gonna make me cry again. I’ve cried way too much today,” she said, laughing.

Embarrassed, Shintaro paused for a few seconds to gather up his courage before holding out his arms. “If you wanna cry, you can,” he said as his face reddened. “You don’t have to hold back or anything.”

For a second, Momo didn’t know if she wanted to laugh or cry anymore. She threw herself at Shintaro, practically tackling him in the process. She smiled to herself as Shintaro smoothed out her hair, and it was as if they were children again, before Momo felt any bit of self-consciousness.

“Thanks, big bro.”

Chapter Text

She grew up reading fairy tales and stories about magic and princesses and princes that would save the one he loved with shining armor on horseback. Every time she flipped through her favorite story books, she marveled at how perfect the romances were and how flawless everything seemed to be. She yearned for her own knight in shining armor who would save her from all her troubles and whisk her away to a magical land free of worries and sorrow.

She lost her father at a young age; she barely remembered what he looked like. Her mother was the strongest woman she knew, raising her without the help of anyone else. She grew up in a small cottage in the woods, built by her grandfather years and years ago as a present for her grandmother, far from the city. But tragedy struck, as if inevitable, taking her mother away from her. She was alone in the world and forced to leave her home to live in the city, where her new legal guardians would be.

That’s when she met him: her prince. He saw her at her lowest points and led her out of the darkness, hand in hand. He was her savior, her knight in shining armor, and bit by bit, she was able to smile again. But at the same time, being with him taught her that not all of the fairy tales she loved were entirely right — reality wasn’t as sugar-coated and perfect as the stories made it seem. But it was real, and she realized that she liked her reality better, as long as he was in it.

Her alarm rang at 8AM sharp, and immediately, she sat up in bed, eyes wide. On the other side of the room, Ene stirred, muttering some curse words in her sleep. Marry didn’t usually wake up this early on a Saturday, but today was a different situation. Oh, today was special, for sure. Six months ago, Seto took her hand in his and, with the cutest blush on his face, asked her to be his girlfriend. And six months ago, she blushed the same shade of red, nodding “yes” excitedly as her heart beat wildly with happiness.

The day before, however, Seto apologetically told her that he had a shift at one of his part time jobs until late afternoon, so he couldn’t spend as much time with her. Marry pouted and sulked for a bit, disappointed, but since he promised he would be back as soon as possible and because he looked so apologetic and genuine, she forgave him.

Besides, that gave her more time to set her plan in action. She wanted to do something special for him, since he was always the one that would surprise her with romantic gestures that she never anticipated. She already asked Kido beforehand to help her, so she was sure that everything would be perfect.

She quickly got up from under the covers and went to the bathroom to brush her teeth. She still had to pick an outfit and do her makeup; ah, maybe she should have gotten up even earlier?

“Ah, Marry-chan, good morning!” said Momo as they met in the hallway. “You’re up early, aren’t you?”

“Yep!” said Marry, beaming. “Today’s my six-months with Seto, and I want to do something special for him before he comes back from his shift.”

“Oh! That’s today, huh?” Momo said, her eyes lighting up with excitement. “Congrats! Ah, you guys are always so cute. I’m so envious!”

“Ehehe, thanks,” said Marry bashfully. “Ah, that’s right! Momo-chan, can you help me with something?”

“Of course! Anything for you, my princess.”

“I need to pick out an outfit for later… Can you give me some advice?”

“Oh my gosh, for sure! Don’t worry, I gotchu. Seto’s gonna swoon at the sight of the cutest girl ever later, I swear.”

Marry blushed. “Thank you.”

“Don’t even mention it! C’mon, let’s go, let’s go!”

They made their way back to Marry’s room and inspected her closet. Marry’s style was very soft and girly, and her wardrobe consisted of many items with frills, lace, and ribbons. All the girls of the gang had very distinct fashion styles, and it was always interesting to see the differences between them all. Kido wore a blend between tomboyish and mature outfits, generally dressing in hoodies or slim sweaters. As a fashion icon, Momo went with a lot of trends, and she recently settled with the chic, clean aesthetic. Ene wore a lot of streetwear and sneakers, often showing up in logo prints and Air Jordans. Her twin sister Actor wore some type of cyberpunk techwear, which fit well with her image as Headphone Actor, gas mask and all. Ayano had a lot of elegant, single-toned dresses and of course, her signature red scarf.

“Ah, Ene, you’re awake.”

“Well, I am now,” said Ene, yawning as she returned to the room. “What’s going on? Why are y’all up so early?”

“It’s Marry and Seto’s six-months! Marry needs to pick an outfit and I’m here to help!” Momo said proudly.

Ene sat back on the bed, yawning once again. “Oh, sweet. Congrats, lovebirds. So what are the options?”

“Okay, well, I love this sweater, but the weather’s too warm for that, unfortunately,” said Momo, pulling out hanger after hanger from the closet. “Ooh, I love this top with the lace; it’d look super nice with the light-wash denim shorts you have. Or maybe this two-piece set with the light pink tweed jacket and skirt? Very Chanel-esque, you know.”

“Honestly, I’d want to see Marry dress sexy instead of cutesy for once,” said Ene. “Seto would probably faint from a nosebleed.”

“True!” Momo said, laughing. “You still got those black tights from your hot witch costume last Halloween?”

“Don’t remind me, please,” said Ene, sighing. “I was forced. But anyways, keep going, I’m actually enjoying this fashion show.”

“This is so hard because Marry looks good in everything!” Momo said. “She looks like a dainty faerie. Seto is so blessed.”

“You guys flatter me,” said Marry, blushing.

“It’s just the truth!” Momo said, laughing. “Oh, you have to go with this one. This dress. This is the one.” She held up a cream off-the-shoulder chiffon dress with pink floral print and cinching at the waist.

“I agree,” said Ene, nodding in approval. “That’s the one.”

Marry examined the dress and nodded, smiling to herself. “Okay, then I’ll go with this one. Thanks, guys!”

“Of course,” said Momo. “When are you guys meeting?”

“Sometime in the late afternoon. Whenever Seto gets back from his shift.”

“Then why are you up so early?” Ene asked. “It’s, like, not even nine yet.”

“I asked Kido to teach me how to bake a cake,” said Marry. “I’m worried it won’t turn out well, so I gave myself a lot of time.”

“Ooh, I’ll watch you guys!” said Momo. “I don’t really have any plans today. As of right now, at least. I’d offer to help, but as you guys know…”

“Yeah, you can watch, but you better keep out of the kitchen,” said Ene, raising an eyebrow. “We don’t want to set off the fire alarm. For, like, the fifth time. You might actually make something explode today.”

“Hey! I’m not that bad, am I?” Momo pouted. “What time are you guys starting?”

“Around ten, I think. I’ll be doing my makeup and hair before then.”

“Sounds good!”

“Ene, will you join us?” asked Marry.

Ene shrugged. “Sure, sounds like fun.”

Marry smiled to herself. “Then I’ll see you guys in a bit!”

As she finished the last curl to her hair, Marry took a deep breath and studied herself in the mirror. She generally didn’t use too much makeup, often sufficing with just eyebrows and mascara. But today, she made sure her eye makeup and blush color matched the flowers on her dress and checked that her accessories matched the hair pin she picked out.

She checked her appearance one last time before heading to the kitchen, where she saw that Kido was just starting to set up their station. She had asked Kido to help her a few days in advance, and so Kido bought all the materials they needed already.

“Good morning, Marry,” said Kido as she tied her hair back into a ponytail. “Apparently all the guys headed outside already, so it’s just the girls at the base right now.”

“Wait, no way?” asked Momo, who sat near the counter. “Even my brother?”

“Yeah, surprisingly,” said Kido. “Strange. I guess they all have plans.”

“What are you guys making today?” asked Ene as she sat down next to Momo.

“Tiramisu,” said Kido, taking out the recipe and putting it in front of everyone. “It was Marry’s idea.”

“I thought you were a diehard fan of strawberry shortcake,” said Momo as she watched Kido and Marry crack the eggs and separate the whites from the yolk. “Why not make that instead?”

“Well…” Marry blushed. “I do like strawberry shortcake, but… I just thought that its sweetness doesn’t really fit too well, you know? The reason why I’ve always loved strawberry shortcake is because it was just like the fairy tales I used to look up to: overly sweet and saturated and perfect in every way. But I think I have a change in taste, now. Being with Seto has taught me that love isn’t really like that. It’s bitter at times, but once you overcome that, it becomes sweeter than ever. Just like tiramisu, I guess.”

“Our Marry has grown up,” said Momo, feigning a sniffle.

“Really, I’m proud of you and Seto for maturing and coming this far,” said Kido, smiling slightly. “I’m happy for you guys.”

“I’ve honestly only seen them as the PDA couple who’s practically joined at the hip before, and I thought of Marry as just another lovesick girl,” said Ene. “I take that back and I have to apologize. This girl’s actually more woke than a lot of people.”

“Ooh, tell us about how it’s been,” said Momo excitedly. “Even when you two first announced to all of us that you guys started dating, we kind of all accepted it as normal, and we were even surprised that you two haven’t been dating from the beginning, so we didn’t ask too much.”

“Tell us all the tea,” said Ene, her eyes sparkling with mischief. “You’re the only one here in a relationship. Be honest, what’s it like?”

Marry smiled as she reminisced the times she spent with Seto. She had great memory and remembered every moment her heart fluttered when she was next to him. She could tell the story perfectly, from when they first met to when they started having feelings for each other to when they started dating to now… But that would be too long of a story, so she’ll shorten it just a little.

“Well… I guess I haven’t really talked about it before, huh? Where should I start?”

“From the beginning, I guess,” said Ene. “You guys knew each other before any of us met you.”

“Seto and I met a little before I moved to the city, when I still lived at the cottage in the forest — I think that was the summer before eighth grade. I think that was probably the lowest point in my life, and I felt really really lonely. I was just at home one day when I heard a knock on the door and a voice asking if there was anyone home because he got lost in the forest and didn’t know what to do.

“That was Seto, and I let him in so that he could rest a bit. I was homeschooled, and I’ve always been at the forest cottage, so I’ve never really seen other kids my age. We talked and hung out until it was getting late, and before he left, he promised that he would be back. He kept his promise; he visited me everyday for a week, and we became really good friends. At the end of that week, I told him that I would be moving to the city with my legal guardians and that I would be attending the same school.”

“Now that you mention it, there was a week during the summer before eighth grade that Seto would go out everyday,” said Kido. “We always questioned where he would sneak off to, but he would never tell us.”

“What was Seto doing in the forest in the first place?” Ene asked, raising an eyebrow.

Kido shrugged. “He just kinda disappears into nature once in a while. We never really questioned it. As long as he came back all in one piece, Mom and Dad were fine with it.”

“But that story seems so dreamy!” Momo squealed. “It’s like something out of a fairy tale. Marry’s the faerie princess who lives in the forest and Seto was the prince who got lost and found the love of his life!”

“What happened afterwards?” Ene asked excitedly. “How did love blossom between the two of you?”

Marry blushed. “Well… To me, Seto really was my knight in shining armor. He saved me when I was at my lowest, and he’s super nice to me. He always watches out for me and thinks of me; I don’t think I’ll find anyone else who only has eyes for me like Seto does. I think I started liking him in freshman year; I thought about confessing, but I was really worried that he wouldn’t feel the same way, so if I confessed, it would be really awkward between us and maybe we wouldn’t even be able to be friends. I’m really thankful it all worked out.”

“So I’m guessing Seto confessed to you?” Ene asked, doing her best to hide her expression that screamed “wow, fucking relatable” to the last bits of Marry’s words.

Marry nodded. “One day, I was waiting for Seto after his shift at the florist, since he said he had something for me. He handed me a bouquet of my favorite flowers and said that he loved me and asked me to be his girlfriend. Of course, I said yes, and I guess it’s been six months since that happened.”

“Ah, how romantic,” Momo sighed. “I’m so envious! I wish I had a good man like Seto!”

“Not a single man that catches your eye at the club?” Ene asked, laughing.

“Guys at the club are so unreliable, in my opinion,” said Momo, rolling her eyes. “They generally don’t want anything serious.”

“Haven’t you gotten a handful of love letters before from, like, half the school?” Kido asked.

“Yeah, and they’ve multiplied in amount recently. Man, I don’t know, it’s kinda troubling at times. They barely know who I really am, you know? They’re only satisfied with what they see on the exterior. They’ve barely had a conversation with me before. How can they say that they like me when they’re basing that off of nothing?”

“That’s true,” said Ene. “Why don’t you just pretend to date someone or something so that they’ll back off?”

“I mean, who am I gonna pretend to date?” Momo asked, raising an eyebrow. “I don’t have a lot of guy friends who are close enough for me to do that. My brother’s an obvious hell to the fuck no, and then all the other guys of the gang are… off limits, if you know what I mean.”

Marry tilted her head in confusion; sure, excluding Shintaro and Seto, the other options of Konoha and Kano were a little… against girl code. But… “What about Hibiya?”

The silence was deafening; one could hear a pin drop in the ten seconds following Marry’s words. Kido raised an eyebrow, Ene sucked in a breath as she looked at Momo and smiled mischievously, and Momo uttered a quiet “eh?” as she blushed.

“W-What are you talking about, Marry-chan?” Momo said, laughing awkwardly.

“Why? You and Hibiya-kun are really close, aren’t you? You’re probably closer to him than all the other guys of the gang. I’m sure he’d be fine with it, as long as he could help you out.”

“Marry’s right,” said Ene. “What about my boy Hibiya? You guys get along very well.”

“In what way do we get along ‘very well?’” Momo sputtered. “He always calls me ‘old lady!’ Always so disrespectful to his upperclassmen! And we bicker all the time.”

“I always thought that was a little inside joke between you two,” said Kido.

“I mean, sure, yeah, that’s true, but— Goddamn, stop smiling like that, Ene!”

“Why?” Ene snickered. “I’m just picturing HibiMomo as a legit couple. You two look good together.”

“Ene! You brought this onto yourself, so don’t blame me for it!”

“Oh, I’m so scared. What are you gonna do, go tattletale to Hibiya, your mans?”

“I’ll tell Konoha about how much he matters to you!”

Immediately, Ene stopped laughing. She looked like she wanted to stop existing or stop Momo from existing — or maybe both.

“Oh, well played,” said Kido, biting back a laugh.

“Ene-chan, have you confessed to Konoha-san yet?” Marry asked, eyes sparkling.

“W-What!?” Ene sputtered. “I— I didn’t say anything about l-liking him!”

Kido rolled her eyes. “Please, Ene, you can drop that act, at least in front of us. Literally the only ones who don’t know you guys belong together are you and Konoha. It’s crazy how oblivious you two are.”

“Exactly, Ene,” said Momo, examining her acrylics. “KonoEne is practically confirmed at this point; you might as well get it over with.”

Ene sat in silence for a bit, deep in thought, before she spoke again. “W-Well, it’s just like what Marry said. What if I confess and he doesn’t feel the same and it would be really awkward between us and he’ll start avoiding me and we can’t even be friends? I would ruin everything.”

“If you love him dearly, you gotta take that leap of faith,” said Momo. “Buff up! You got this!”

“Ene-chan, tell us about you and Konoha!” Marry said excitedly. “You guys knew each other for a very long time, right?”

“There’s not much to talk about…” Ene said, fiddling with her fingers. “We met in middle school, I guess. We were the only two in the special needs classroom, since I have narcolepsy and Haruka has, like, that illness that’s much more severe than mine. Ayano-chan’s dad was our teacher, which was kinda weird, since we knew him before we knew her. But uh… I guess it was just because the two of us were the only two students in that class, so we kinda had no choice but to cling onto each other. Haruka was also really pushy about being friends, so I guess I really had no choice.”

“Isn’t that kind of romantic?” Momo said. “I can imagine! Takane-san and Haruka-san pre-dyed-hair, just the two of them, in the sunlit classroom. Haruka-san’s staring at Takane-san fondly as Takane-san looks away, embarrassed, pretending to focus on the music she’s listening to but really—”

Ene let out a screech that could only be described as a real life keyboard smash as she put her head on the counter. Marry and Kido giggled as they watched Ene writhe in agony and embarrassment.

“What do you like about Konoha-san?” Marry asked.

“Trust,” said Kido, seeing that Ene stayed silent. “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.”

“Well…” Ene looked away, her face flushing red. “Haruka’s… an idiot, but he’s really kind. I’m kind of sharp-tongued and mean, you know, so I’ve never had many friends. He doesn’t think I’m lame or anything and he never hated me for being who I am; in fact, he accepts me for who I am and makes me believe that I’m fine the way I am.”

“How cute,” said Momo. “You guys look great together. I can’t wait to see you guys happily dating.”

“He probably doesn’t feel the same,” said Ene, sighing. “Even if I confessed, that idiot might just think I’m expressing thankfulness for his friendship or something.”

“Well, there’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?”

“I don’t know, I just—”

Ene was cut off by her phone buzzing with a text notification. She picked it up and glanced at the screen before wrinkling her brows in disgust.

“What happened?” Kido asked.

“It’s Actor,” said Ene, sighing. “I asked her earlier if she had any plans for the day, and she said she’s hanging out with Kuroha.”

“That reminds me,” said Momo. “Those two are pretty close, aren’t they?”

Ene scoffed. “Yeah, she might be my sister, but I have no idea what she sees in the guy.”

“Why do you hate Kuroha so much?” Marry wondered out loud.

“I mean, at first glance, the guy looks fucking scary and just like trouble, doesn’t he?” Ene shrugged. “He’s just bad news. Kinda dangerous with his reputation, too. And he, well, wasn’t the nicest to Haruka for a while, although Haruka says that they’ve solved things out recently.”

“But Actor seems to be pretty good friends with him,” said Kido.

“Yeah, she’s a grown ass woman, so I can’t tell her who to befriend and who not to befriend. It’s up to her.”

“What if they start dating?” Momo said.

Ene sighed. “Oh boy. I don’t know, he better treat her right. If he does, I’d have no issues. But if he doesn’t… He’s in for a beating.”

“I wonder if either of them like each other,” said Marry.

“No idea. I’ll ask her next time,” said Ene, her lips curling upwards into a smirk. “That’ll be fun, for sure.”

“Well, since we’re practically going around the table at this point,” said Momo, who fixated her gaze on Kido, who tensed up. “Leader, it’s your turn!”

“What do you mean ‘my turn?’” Kido said, feigning calmness.

“Oh, come on, tell us about what you think of a certain cat-eyed trickster,” said Ene, a mischievous grin spreading over her face.

Kido sighed. “It’s complicated,” she said.

“We’ve got time,” Momo chimed in.

“Alright, alright,” said Kido, blushing. “He’s… special. Okay? I said it. He’s always been there for me, ever since we met. He sees me as who I am and doesn’t have any unrealistic expectations for me, which makes it relaxing to be around him. Sometimes I misinterpret his kindness towards me as him reciprocating my feelings, but he doesn’t like me. He’s liked Aya-nee for a while now.”

“For real?” Ene raised an eyebrow. “I did not expect that one.”

Kido shrugged. “I’m not really bothered by it. I’m not really expecting to date him or anything. I’m fine with how we are now.”

“Are you sure?” Marry asked.

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t worry about it. But speaking of Aya-nee, she’s definitely into Shintaro, isn’t she?”

“Pretty sure, yeah,” said Ene. “And the loser is head over heels for her, too. He’d never admit it, though.”

“Honestly don’t know what she sees in my brother,” said Momo, sighing. “She’s an angel, while my brother is just… my brother.”

A knock on the door interrupted their conversation, and Ene went to open the door. Immediately, she started laughing hysterically, dragging the person to the kitchen.

“Perfect, absolute godly timing,” said Ene between laughs. “Guys, guys, speak of the devil.”

Beside her, Ayano looked bewildered. “I’m just here to pick up some math notes Shintaro said he made for me. What’s going on?”

“We were just talking about the two of you,” Ene snickered. “You’re in love with that bastard, right?”

Ayano’s face flushed as red as her trademark scarf. “E-Eh? What are you talking about all of a sudden?”

“We’ve been talking about all the love gossip for a while now,” said Momo, laughing. “Since Marry’s making cake for Seto for their six-months.”

“Fess up, Ayano,” said Ene. “Give us the truth. Don’t worry, all the guys are out; we’re the only ones here.”

“Well…” Ayano averted her gaze. “I mean… Yes…”

“You heard it here first, folks!” Ene said proudly.

“But it’s okay if he doesn’t feel the same way!” Ayano said quickly. “He probably thinks I’m a bother and would be better off if someone like me isn’t always around him…”

“Are you for real?” Momo raised an eyebrow. “Dude, my brother is a hopeless mess. He just can’t learn to word his appreciation. Trust me, he likes having you around.”

“If you say so…” said Ayano, sighing.

“But anyways, Marry and Seto always look so happy with each other,” said Momo, sighing. “I’ve never seen them argue before.”

“That’s not true,” said Marry with a smile. “When we first started dating, we had to learn that being in a relationship is very different from a friendship. We had a lot of arguments, actually, towards the beginning, about the littlest things too. But over time, we’ve learned about what either of us values and how to make each other happy. We always sort things out by talking to each other instead of keeping it to ourselves and getting angrier over time.”

“Damn, I always thought you guys were the perfect couple,” said Ene. “Like, zero arguments, always hanging around each other and all that.”

Marry smiled to herself. That was what she wanted at first, too; she envisioned a romance filled to the brim with sugar and pink bubbles. But being with Seto taught her that reality wasn’t so sickeningly sweet, and she liked it better this way. Being with Seto felt real.

“I’m not perfect, and neither is he, but we’re perfect for each other, and I’m really happy to be with him.”

The sound of fumbling keys and the opening of the front door startled Marry. She had just finished the tiramisu a few minutes ago and was cleaning up the area. It was noon, and she was just about to think about lunch plans when a familiar figure walked into the living room.

“Seto?”

Her boyfriend looked at her and smiled brightly. “Ah, Marry,” he said, walking up to her. “Thank goodness you’re up.”

“What happened? Didn’t you have work?”

“Ah, that…” Seto smiled sheepishly. “Sorry, that was a lie. How could I schedule shifts for today, of all days? I rescheduled them all for next week. I wanted to give you a surprise.”

Marry puffed out her cheeks as she pouted. “Eh— You should’ve told me!”

“Aha, sorry, sorry,” he said, laughing. “But anyways. This is for you.”

Only now did Marry notice the bouquet he was carrying. She took it from him and inspected the arrangement of flowers. Pale pink roses and pink baby’s breath were some of her favorites; she smiled at Seto’s thoughtfulness.

“Thank you,” she breathed. “It’s beautiful.”

“Earlier, I went with the guys to buy some stuff,” said Seto. “I also checked in at the florist I worked at, so I got this for you.”

The door swung open a second time, and all the missing members of the gang filed in.

“Oh, I see Seto’s doing his job properly,” said Kano. “He’s been stressing over this all morning, you know.”

“Kano!” Seto said, embarrassed. “You didn’t have to tell her that.”

“Ah, Shintaro!” Ayano emerged from the kitchen as she saw the guys in the living room.

“Ayano?” Shintaro raised an eyebrow. “Why are you here?”

“You said you have math notes for me, so I thought I’d stop by…”

“You say that as if you don’t want her here,” said Ene. “Damn, dude, do you really dislike her presence that much?”

Shintaro glared at Ene before sighing. “No, I don’t! I never said that. Don’t twist my words like that. I just… Ugh, whatever. I’ll get the notes from my room.”

“Seto-san! What do you think about Marry’s outfit today?” Momo asked excitedly.

Seto blushed as he looked at Marry. “You look super cute, Marry,” he said bashfully. “As always.”

Marry grinned. “Thank you.”

“Ah, also…” Seto fumbled around in his pocket and presented a small box. “This is for you.”

She took the box from him and upon opening it, she saw a dainty necklace with a small pink jeweled cherry blossom pendant. Her eyes lit up at the sight of it; it was the prettiest necklace she’d ever seen.

“Well, your last name is ‘Kozakura,’ right? I thought this would compliment your name, too, so that would be cool. I got advice from the guys, too, so I hope you like it—”

“I love it!” Marry said excitedly. “It’s so pretty! Thank you, Seto!”

“Of course,” said Seto, grinning. “I’ll put it on for you.”

Marry nodded, and as Seto carefully focused on clipping the necklace, she stared at the face of the boy she loved so dearly. As he finished making sure the necklace was secure, Marry put her arms around Seto and pulled him in towards her. She kissed his lips softly, and as she pulled away a few seconds later, Seto pulled her in for another one. She could hear the quiet squealing of her friends in the background, but for these moments, she focused on him and only him.

“I can practically see the pink bubbles in the air around you guys,” Shintaro said as the couple of them stood, holding onto each other and smiling.

“Ah, sorry,” said Seto, laughing. “It’s just… Marry’s so cute; I can’t help it.”

Shintaro made a face. “Forget I said anything,” he said, sighing as he went to the living room.

“Ignore him,” said Ene, rolling her eyes. “Y’all cute as shit.”

“Aren’t you guys going somewhere?” Konoha asked.

“Ah, that’s right!” Seto said. “Let’s go on a picnic! I found this super scenic spot; we can have lunch there and then walk around a little bit. I already bought us some food and snacks and everything else; it’s all in the car already.”

“That sounds great,” said Marry, smiling. “But first, I have something for you, too.” She quickly went to the kitchen for the tiramisu she had made. Kido had taken it out of the fridge when seeing Seto was back already and placed it in a bag. She took the bag and hurried back to Seto.

“I made tiramisu for us,” she said bashfully. “I haven’t tried it yet, so I don’t know how good it is, but Kido helped me and I tried my best.”

“Oh, thanks,” said Seto. “That’s perfect. We can eat it when we get there, then.” He hugged her and kissed her forehead as he took the bag from her.

“Let’s go, then!”

“We’re heading out, guys,” Seto called out to their friends.

“Have fun,” their friends chorused.

Marry and Seto looked at each other and smiled. As they headed downstairs to Seto’s car, fingers intertwined, Marry stole secret glances at him, and every time she looked at him, she could feel her heartbeat increase in rapidity.

“Marry.”

“Hm?”

“I love you.”

Marry smiled to herself as she repeated his words over and over to herself in her heart. Being with him made her feel so, so happy, in a way she’d never experienced before. She’s found her prince, her knight in shining armor, and she’s never going to let him go.

“I love you, too, Seto.”

Chapter Text

Legend has it that the Blindfold Gang formed two years ago and has dominated the city since. Some say that they’re not that bad, as they rarely cause trouble or havoc and didn’t seek trouble regularly. However, many shy away at the sight of their red eyes and trademark hoodies, deeming them as “monstrous” for being outliers. They fear and despise them for their differences, shunning them from society.

Strange gazes follow them wherever they go, but they’ve learned to bear with it, just as they learned to bear the scorching summer heat. Their loneliness dissolved as they took each other’s hands, sharing the warmth of connection amongst each other. Hand in hand, they advance towards the future, perhaps lonely but never “alone.”

This is the story of their encounter, their fight, and their friendship. With each other, they venture forward to take back what’s theirs, stepping into a world beyond their imagination. With their gazes meeting in tempo, they high five each other as they sneer at the heat, at their differing values, laughing off the cruelness of the erratic world, together.

Boys and girls, face forward!

Glancing at his phone nervously, Kousuke fidgeted in his seat as he realized that it was time. It was the first day of eighth grade, and although he wasn’t so much nervous for the beginning of another school year, he was definitely nervous to see her again.

He met her during summer vacation a few weeks ago in the midst of the forest when he was hungry, tired, and lost. He loved wandering around nature normally, and he always marveled at the sight of different creatures he had never seen before.

When he first saw her, he thought she was some sort of forest faerie, a mythical being who had walked out of a fairy tale. She was so extremely beautiful with her long, curly, light blonde hair that seemed to have a life of its own, and immediately, he noticed her red eyes that were identical to his. His face flushed red; he had never seen anyone as beautiful as her before.

They became great friends over the course of a week; Kousuke would sneak out of the house everyday to meet her, and his siblings often wondered where he headed off to. But he didn’t tell them, partly because they would be worried sick if they knew he was somewhere far and unknown again and partly because he simply wasn’t ready to share Marry Kozakura with others yet.

He was elated when she told him that she would be moving to his city and attending the same school as him. They promised to meet on the first day of school near the science buildings so that Kousuke could show her around. Now, the promised time was coming; he could hear his heartbeat increasing in rapidity.

“Ah, Seto!”

He looked up at the sound of that melodic voice. It was her; she looked nervous, but once their eyes met, her nervousness melted into the softest smile. It was strange to see her outside of the forest, but he definitely wasn’t complaining.

“Marry,” he said, grinning. “You really are here.”

“I’m really nervous,” she said, sighing. “I’ve never been to school with so many people before. I’m so overwhelmed; what if I won’t make any friends?”

Kousuke laughed. “Don’t worry! That’s not going to happen. Besides, you already have a friend here. I’ll be there for you.”

“Thanks! I really don’t know what I’d do without you, Seto.”

“Let’s meet at break; I can show you around the school a little more, and I’ll introduce you to my siblings later. We can all have lunch together.”

“Ah, that’s right! I hope I’ll get along with them…”

“Don’t worry about that. They’re super nice, so you’ll—”

“Well, well, what do we have here?”

A familiar voice that overflowed with amusement interrupted Kousuke’s sentence. Kousuke tensed up at the sound of his brother’s voice coming from over his shoulder; judging from that mischievous tone, he could tell that Shuuya Kano was up to no good.

“Shuuya, I thought you were with Tsubomi,” Kousuke said calmly as he turned around.

“Well, she’s right there,” said Shuuya, gesturing behind him. Sure enough, Tsubomi stood with a raised eyebrow and a similar look of amusement on her face.

“Ah, that makes sense,” said Kousuke, laughing awkwardly.

“Well, care to introduce to us your friend?” Shuuya asked, the corners of his mouth tugging upwards to form a grin as he put unnecessary emphasis on his last word.

“This is Marry Kozakura, a friend I met in the summer. She just moved to the city and this is her first time at school in person, so I’m showing her around. I was going to introduce her to you guys later, but I guess you found us,” said Kousuke, sighing. “Marry, these are my siblings Shuuya Kano and Tsubomi Kido.”

“Ah, nice to meet you!” Marry said, tensing up. “I’ve heard about you guys before from Seto. I hope we get along!”

“Of course we’ll get along well,” said Shuuya, laughing. “Considering you and Kousuke get along very well, you know.”

“Alright, that’s enough of that,” said Tsubomi, sighing as she slapped Shuuya on the back. “You’re scaring her.”

“What was that for, Tsubomi?” Shuuya whined. “I was just trying to be nice!”

“No, you were terrorizing the poor girl. It’s her first day; let her live, goddammit.” Tsubomi rolled her eyes. “Anyways, as Kousuke said, I’m Tsubomi Kido. And this dumbass over here is Shuuya Kano. He may have terrorized you a little earlier, but he’s relatively harmless. I hope we get along, Kozakura.”

“Ah, you can just call me Marry! I’m super nervous to be here but I’m so glad I met you guys.”

“Hey, hey, what class do you have first?” Shuuya asked. “Hopefully we’ll be in one of your classes to help you out.”

“I have…” Marry took a glance at her schedule on her phone. “English with Kousaka first.”

“Oh perfect, that’s the same as Tsubomi!” Shuuya exclaimed. “I have Math with Minami. Kousuke, what about you?”

“History with Sonoda.”

“It’s almost time for class,” said Tsubomi, taking a glance at her phone. “We should get going.”

“That’s right, that’s right,” said Shuuya. “Can’t be late on our first day! On we go, comrades!”

Marry giggled to herself, and seeing her made Kousuke smile too. He was glad that she was having fun, and he was also glad that his siblings didn’t embarrass him too much. Before they reached their separate classrooms, Marry tugged on his sleeve and smiled at him.

“I’m so glad I met you guys.”

To make it very clear, Takane Enomoto hated school. God, she fucking hated being here — all these other students shooting looks and whispering behind her back, all these teachers that didn’t really give a shit, all these motherfuckers that she wished would just disappear already…

What was the point, anyways? Not like she was exceptionally bright or even did moderately well with academics; she’d fall asleep in class all the time, whether it be against her will or not. Maybe yeah, it was essential to at least get a high school diploma for future careers, but who the hell wants to think about the adult world? Fuck that. Adults are dirty bastards, anyways.

She spent her freshman year separated from her peers in the special needs classroom, further isolated from normalcy. It was like sticking a permanent tag that spelled out “DIFFERENT” onto her identity, and everyone around her would never let her forget about it. Now that she had to spend time outside of the special needs classroom and in a normal classroom, the gap between her and normality became even larger, and she soon realized that perhaps it was impossible for her to integrate fully into society.

Turning the corner, she approached her classroom. Sighing, she opened the door and headed towards her seat in the back of the room, the window seat in the second-to-last row. After getting settled in her seat, she sighed once again and put her head down on her desk, closing her eyes as she pretended to listen to music with her headphones.

“Good morning, Takane!”

That energetic voice belonged to none other than the person she wanted to meet and avoid at the same time. Takane looked up to see the face of Haruka Kokonose only centimeters away from her face. She yelped in surprise, almost tripping over her feet and falling flat on her ass.

“God fucking damn it, Haruka,” she cursed. “You’re too close, you idiot!”

“Ah, sorry,” Haruka laughed sheepishly. “I was just really excited to see you!”

She ignored the fluttering of her heart and instead roller her eyes. “You’re going to see me every day; you’ll get tired of my face eventually.”

“Aw, but Takane! How could I ever get tired of seeing you? I really like you!”

If she was drinking any sort of liquid, she would’ve spat it out all over her desk by now. Goddamn it, Haruka Kokonose, she yelled into the oblivion. God FUCKING dammit. To him, saying something so embarrassing seemed to be normal, and he never seemed to see the implications of his words, which frustrated her, obviously. But don’t get any funny thoughts, because obviously, Takane Enomoto was not in love with Haruka Kokonose. Right? Haha…

Oh, who was she kidding? She’d been in love with this idiot since last year — they were the only two students in the special needs classroom, and they soon become good friends, although Takane was a little reluctant to give in at first. But soon, she found herself unable to pull her eyes away from him sometimes, and her increased heart rate at the sight of him rendered her unable to deny reality anymore. She hated these feelings, wishing, praying to God that they would go away. But no; her love for her best friend clung to her heart tighter than ever, and no matter how much she tried, she couldn’t shake it away.

“Ah, Takane-san! And Haruka-san, too!”

That melodic voice, that angelic face, and that trademark red scarf… Could it be? Approaching Takane and Haruka was Ayano Tateyama, a friend they met in freshman year. Ayano’s father was Takane and Haruka’s teacher in the special needs classroom, and once they became friends, they soon became inseparable. Takane never really had many friends, but she knew that Ayano was a good girl and she was beyond blessed to be friends with this angel.

“Ayano! I didn’t know we were in the same class!” Takane said.

“I’m so excited for this year! We’re going to have so much fun!” Ayano said. “Right, Shintaro?”

Takane’s face scrunched up in disgust at the sound of that name, and even more so did she show her revolt as she saw Shintaro Kisaragi standing behind Ayano. He gave her a look of equal disgust as he sat down in the seat behind Haruka.

Shintaro Kisaragi, self proclaimed genius with an IQ of 168, was far from a friend of hers — just thinking about it left a sour taste on Takane’s tongue. He was an acquaintance at best, since he was best buddies with Ayano (for some reason; she didn’t know why angelic Ayano would befriend sour Shintaro, but oh well) and good friends with Haruka, so unfortunately, she wouldn’t be able to boot him out of her life, although she would prefer it if she could avoid him at all costs.

“You’re in this class, too?” Takane asked, staring at Shintaro.

He looked back at her with a deadpanned expression. “Why so sour, Enomoto? You’re not still hung up over those DEAD BULLET wins I have against you, are you?”

If it weren’t for Haruka and Ayano simultaneously restraining her, she would’ve charged at him and beat him up — she could’ve done it, she really could’ve, considering Shintaro was all brains and no physical strength. Takane met Shintaro and Ayano at the gaming booth she and Haruka ran at the cultural festival last year, before she found out Ayano was Mr. Tateyama’s daughter. Takane was somewhat of a well-known gaming champion, ranking second in nationals, and she had taken a liking to her winning streak until Shintaro showed up and completely demolished her.

Maybe she shouldn’t have been too cocky and said that if she lost, she’d call him ‘Master,’ but that wasn’t the point. She and Shintaro had been one-sided rivals ever since, and she still hasn’t found the opportunity to beat him yet. Video games were practically the only thing she was good at, so it infuriated her how Shintaro wasn’t even familiar with the games she chose and still won because he just had raw talent.

“Come on, guys, don’t fight!” Haruka said. “It’s our first day all in the same class! Let’s get along with each other, okay?”

“I don’t know why you’re so excited for school,” Takane said, sighing. “It’s just a pain in the ass to be here, honestly.”

“But I love being here! I love being with you guys.”

As far as Takane knew, Haruka’s illness was much more severe than hers; although hers made life a little more tedious, falling asleep at the worst times and all, but Haruka’s was life-threatening. Because of that, he spent more time at the hospital than anywhere else, and he wasn’t able to go to school properly. As his conditions started to improve, he was allowed to go to school, and so she met him in that sunlit classroom that she held close to her heart. After a big operation before sophomore year, his conditions seemed to better so much that he was allowed to go to class normally.

Haruka had always liked being with other people, which Takane found strange — she had no idea how he was always so full of energy and always so happy, even when life sucked. To him, it was probably a dream come true that the four of them were in the same class; he had yearned to be with friends for probably as long as he’d been alive.

“Aw, I love being with you guys, too!” Ayano squealed. “This is going to be so much fun! What do you think, Shintaro?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I’ve been stuck with you since freshman year; I don’t think that’s going to change anytime soon, so I better get used to bearing with it.”

Takane sighed as the teacher entered the room and everyone took their seats. Beside her, Haruka was grinning like the idiot he was, excited to start school. Ayano was frantically looking for her homework, while Shintaro stared at her, frustrated and holding back his scolding. Takane bit back a laugh as she stared out the window, at the clear blue sky and the scorching heat.

“Looks like it’ll be an eventful year.”

She really was having the worst day yet; could the future get any worse than this for Momo Kisaragi? She woke up late for the first day of eighth grade by oversleeping and then falling down the stairs, earning her a raised eyebrow look from her brother. After running at full speed to her classroom to make it on time, she crashed into someone, but she barely had any time to apologize and had to run off. When she got to the classroom, she realized she lost her wallet somewhere on the way, and now it was break and she was starving.

She sat down near the snack kiosk and sighed, closing her eyes as she enjoyed twenty minutes of peace before her next class began. She wasn’t the brightest student, and her parents never let her forget how much of a genius her brother was. She hated school, not because of the workload or the learning, but because it was here that she was constantly reminded that she will never be good enough.

“Excuse me?”

Momo opened her eyes at the sound of a voice near her. It was a boy she had never seen before; was he a new student? The first thing she noticed about him was his eyes; they were a bright glaring red, reflecting the same shade as her own.

“Yes?” Momo asked.

“Are you Momo Kisaragi?” He asked.

“Yeah, that’s me,” said Momo, furrowing her eyebrows. She didn’t know this kid, did she? She couldn’t recall.

“I think you dropped this in the morning.”

Momo looked at the item he handed her and gasped. “Ah! My wallet!” She took it from him and examined it; it was definitely hers. “Oh my god, I thought I lost it! Thank you so much!”

“You dropped it when you bumped into me this morning,” said the boy. “I looked inside and saw your student ID, so I knew who to return it to. Luckily, I saw you right here, so I didn’t have to go to the office and turn it in to lost and found.”

“Thank you so much,” said Momo. “I don’t know what I’d do without this! I would’ve starved to death, really. What’s your name?”

“Hibiya Amamiya,” he said. “I’m in seventh grade.”

“Huh, I’ve never seen you around before.”

“I just moved here recently. I didn’t expect to crash into someone on my first day, really. It was like crashing into a cow.”

Momo’s face burned red. “Hey! Are you calling me fat?”

Hibiya raised an eyebrow. “If I wanted to call you fat, I would’ve called you a pig.”

“Why are kids these days so mean and rude?”

“I don’t know, old lady, you tell me.”

Momo pouted. “Goddamn it, if you didn’t help me earlier, I would’ve strangled you here on the spot,” she said. “I do have to thank you, though. I’ll buy you something from the snack bar! Do you want anything?”

“…The pumpkin pie would be nice.”

Momo grinned. “Alrighty, kid, let your upperclassman treat you well for your first day of school!”

The two of them made their way to the kiosk and returned with a handful of food. Hibiya looked a little speechless at Momo’s choices, but then again, she was already pretty used to it — she’s been told that she has… ah, weird taste, plenty of times.

“So, Hibiya-kun, you just moved here,” said Momo, taking a sip of water. “I’m gonna assume that you don’t really have any friends yet.”

Hibiya frowned. “That’s kinda rude,” he said.

“Do you?”

“No.”

Momo laughed. “Well, same here, so there’s nothing to worry about.”

“Really?” Hibiya raised an eyebrow. “You seem like the popular type.”

“Nah,” Momo said, sighing. “People take one look at these eyes and decide to stay away from me. I have acquaintances, but nobody I would call my ‘friend,’ you know.”

“Me too,” said Hibiya. “People would always whisper behind my back about these eyes, you know. It’s frustrating, really.”

Momo smiled at him. “Hey, you should join me for lunch, if you haven’t found another friend at school by then. I’ll be eating lunch on the rooftop; it’s usually pretty nice there and there’s not a lot of other people.

“Well, I guess I’ll see you there then.”

Shintaro didn’t know how he ended up at his middle school during lunch break, but he’s already here, so he might as well check up on how Momo was doing. Ayano wanted to see if her siblings were doing well, and Haruka suggested that they just go visit them during lunch, to which Ayano enthusiastically agreed. Takane and Shintaro were both dragged along against their will, but along the way, Shintaro thought fuck it, why not, because he knew that once Ayano had decided on something, there was no way anyone could change her mind.

“I texted them and they said they’ll be eating on the rooftop,” Ayano said as they made their way up the stairs. “They also said they made a new friend, so they’ll introduce her to us!”

“So, three siblings, right?” Takane asked.

“Yep!” Ayano said proudly. “Tsubomi, Kousuke, and Shuuya! We had this little game back when we were kids, pretending to be a group of heroes, and their codenames back then were just their last names: Kido, Seto, and Kano. Ah, it was pretty fun back then!”

“That sounds fun!” Haruka said. “If I had a secret code name, I’d be Konoha!”

“Idiot, isn’t that just your gaming username?” Takane asked, raising an eyebrow.

“What an observation, ‘Dancing Princess of the Spotlight, Ene,’” Shintaro remarked dryly.

Takane immediately slapped her palm over Shintaro’s mouth. “You wanna fight, you fucker?” She hissed.

“Guys, don’t fight!” Ayano said. “Come on, we’re here!”

They approached the rooftop and as they opened the door, they saw four students sitting and talking amongst themselves as they ate lunch. The four of them looked up at the sound of the door opening, and they waved.

“Ah, let me introduce my siblings!” Ayano said as they walked up to the four. “This is Tsubomi Kido, Kousuke Seto, and Shuuya Kano! Everyone, these are my friends Takane Enomoto, Haruka Kokonose, and Shintaro Kisaragi.”

“Ah, I’ve seen Kano-kun before,” said Haruka. “You’ve visited us in high school before, haven’t you?”

It was true; Shintaro had seen the cat-eyed kid before when he went to the high school campus to give things to Ayano. The four of them talked to the kid a few times, and from those few conversations they had, Shintaro had a feeling that Shuuya Kano didn’t like him very much.

“Yeah, I have,” said Shuuya. “It’s nice to see everyone again. But before we forget, we have to let Kousuke introduce his new best friend!”

Everyone looked toward the last member who hadn’t been introduced yet, who instinctively hid behind Kousuke. It was evident that she was a shy one and that she was rather nervous.

“This is Marry Kozakura,” said Kousuke. “She just moved to the city and she’s always been homeschooled, so she’s still getting adjusted to everything.”

“Nice to meet you,” Marry said quietly. “You can just call me Marry.”

“She’s so cute!” Ayano squealed. “Nice to meet you, Marry-chan!”

Their conversations were interrupted by the sound of the door opening. Shintaro looked up and saw the surprised face of his sister, who raised an eyebrow at the sight of them all.

“Why is my brother here on the middle school campus?” she asked, bewilderment showing clearly on her face.

“Ayano wanted to visit her siblings,” Shintaro replied. “So she dragged us along.”

“Siblings?”

“These are my siblings!” Ayano said proudly. “Tsubomi, Kousuke, and Shuuya!”

“Eh?” Momo stared at them. “All of them? Damn, that’s impressive. I didn’t know you guys were Ayano-san’s siblings.”

“I didn’t know Kisaragi-chan is Shintaro-kun’s sister!” Shuuya said. “I should’ve figured! You guys have the same last names and all.”

“They don’t look very similar, though,” Tsubomi remarked.

“Well, yeah, thank god,” Momo said, rolling her eyes.

“Hey! What’s that supposed to mean?” Shintaro retorted.

“Anyways,” Momo said. “I was gonna eat lunch here. Can I join?”

“Of course, of course!” Shuuya said. “Join the Blindfold Gang!”

“Blindfold Gang?” Takane echoed, raising an eyebrow.

“Ah, it’s the game we used to play when we were little,” said Ayano, laughing. “We would pretend to be heroes and fight evil to preserve justice! We called ourselves the Blindfold Gang.”

“I also brought a friend with me, if you don’t mind,” Momo said.

Shintaro raised an eyebrow. “A friend? You?”

“Hey! What’s that supposed to mean?” Momo pouted. “Anyways, this is my friend Hibiya Amamiya.”

“Nice to meet you guys,” said Hibiya. “This is… a lot of people. I thought you said the rooftop is generally empty.”

“Well, yeah, that’s what I thought,” Momo said, laughing.

“We can go over introductions again in a bit,” said Shuuya. “For now, let’s have lunch. I’m starving.”

A flash of blue clouded Haruka’s vision as Takane stormed to the rooftop, where he, Ayano, and Shintaro were having lunch. He dropped his chopsticks as Takane sat down next to him; across from their seats, Ayano blinked rapidly while Shintaro coughed and spluttered as he choked on his can of coke.

“What?” Takane asked gruffly, glaring at them. “Stop staring; it’s getting annoying.”

But how could he not stare at her? Takane’s black hair was now a bright, electric blue, so angrily vibrant that it was brushed into pigtails that were even messier than normal. Its saturation had an edge to it, just like her gaze and tone today.

“You weren’t in class earlier today, so I thought you had called in sick or something,” Ayano said slowly, unable to tear her eyes away from Takane’s hair.

“Yeah, I didn’t want to come at first,” Takane said, taking an angry bite out of her sandwich. “But then I remembered you fuckers existed and I might as well come say hi.”

“What kind of cosplay are you pulling off, Enomoto?” Shintaro asked. “It was already enough embarrassment dealing with Ayano’s stupid red scarf.”

“Hey!” Ayano protested. “Red is the color of heroes!”

“Kisaragi, I’m not in the happiest mood today, as you can probably tell,” Takane hissed. “So even if sweet Ayano tries to protect you, I will fucking make sure that throat of yours never makes any noise in the future if I must.”

“W-What happened, Takane?” Haruka stuttered. It’s not that he never saw Takane angry — rather, that would be the norm. She was always a prickly one, but if anything, she was a rose, a beauty protected by thorns. But Takane’s usual frustrated attitude was different from this; she was clearly genuinely mad and upset, and her gaze could murder.

“It’s a long story,” said Takane, letting out a long sigh. “So, uh, you guys know I have a twin sister, right?”

Haruka nodded, while Ayano and Shintaro stared at her blankly. Takane sighed once again and took another angry bite out of her sandwich before speaking.

“Well, I have a twin sister,” she restated. “Her name’s Actor, and she lives overseas with my parents who work there. I live with my grandmother. I hadn’t talked to her in a while, and so we talked on the phone yesterday. My parents had to talk to her, and so she had to leave for a bit, but I guess she forgot to mute herself, so I heard their conversation.

“Yeah, well, as you can probably guess, things didn’t go very well. My parents haven’t been the most caring people when it comes to me; they left me here with my grandmother because I wasn’t good enough, duh, and they’d rather not take care of a disabled kid, you know. I’m pretty sure they wanted to just get rid of me when I was born, hearing that I have narcolepsy, but my grandmother was like hell nah, you can’t just do that.

“I honestly don’t give a shit about how they just left me here and never call or text to check up on me. I couldn’t care less; they can do whatever they want and I’m living just fine right now. It’s just fucking disgusting how they act like they care about me in front of Actor because they can’t just let her know that they actually don’t care about me and all that. They acted all nice and sweet and good-fucking-parent-like that I wanted to gag, asking if I was doing okay and telling Actor to make sure I was happy and all that. Obviously they don’t mean it, but they’ve gotta put on this act, you know.”

“I’m sure they don’t mean it like that!” Ayano said.

“Save it,” Takane said, sighing. “They’ve been like this for ages and I really don’t give a shit. I just got really pissed yesterday and as I looked at myself in the mirror today, I just hated how my existence is made up of my parents, so I decided it was time for an act of defiance. Fuck the black hair I inherited from them — that’s going in the trash.”

“I wonder if my sister dyed her hair for the same reasons,” Shintaro remarked dryly. “Just out of plain spite for her genes.”

“Whatever, what’s done is done,” said Takane, rolling her eyes. “The bleach might seriously gonna fuck up my hair quality, but it’s not like it was any good to begin with, and I honestly couldn’t care le— Haruka, stop fucking around with my hair, goddamn it!”

Haruka only just realized that he had been playing with one of Takane’s blue pigtails when Takane stared at him. Embarrassed, he let go of her hair and laughed, while Takane’s face reddened.

“If you think it’s ugly, you can say it loud and proud,” she said quietly.

“What? It’s not ugly at all!” Haruka said, and he really meant it. Takane with blue hair looked beyond cool, and he had to say, it really did suit her well. “You look really good, Takane!”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah! I think I’m gonna dye my hair, too!”

His friends looked at him incredulously, as if he had just said something unthinkable. Haruka scrunched up his nose at their reactions; he was being serious, after all, and he decide to do it just for jokes and giggles. He wanted to support Takane in his own way, and he knew that with her personality, she would simply kick him away if he tried to comfort her.

“Are you for real?” Takane’s outburst was so loud that Shintaro cringed and covered his ears. “What the fuck, Haruka, you don’t have to do this.”

“But I want to,” he said. “I think I’ll dye it platinum blond — since you look like ‘Ene’ now, I want to look like ‘Konoha’ too!”

“Now, people will really stare at you wherever you go,” said Shintaro, raising an eyebrow.

“As if we weren’t seen as freaks already,” Takane muttered under her breath.

Haruka laughed. “It’s okay! We’ll just stand out because we’re cool and we’re unique! It’ll be fun!”

Takane only sighed as Haruka finished up his food happily, while Ayano and Shintaro looked at each other and smiled.

“What a positive idiot…”

“Hey, isn’t that Seto-san?”

Shuuya squinted towards the direction of the school gates at Momo’s words, and sure enough, he saw his brother dash out of school campus, looking stressed and worried. He raised an eyebrow and looked towards Tsubomi, who shrugged.

“I wonder where he’s going,” said Momo, peering at Kousuke’s disappearing figure. “He looks like he’s in a rush.”

“Let’s catch up to him,” said Tsubomi. “He does look a little stressed.”

With a light jog, the three of them caught up to Kousuke, who was standing in the parking lot, staring at his phone.

“Kousuke, what’s wrong?” Shuuya asked.

“It’s Marry,” said Kousuke. “I haven’t been able to reach her at all. She said she’d meet me after school at the arcade, but I waited for her and she wasn’t there.”

“What, did you get stood up?” said Shuuya. “Sucks, man.”

“She wouldn’t do that,” Kousuke insisted. “Something must have happened, and I’m kinda worried. She’s not answering her phone, either. I came back to school thinking that she might still be here, but she’s not here, either.”

“That does sound a little sketch,” said Momo. “We’ll help you look for her!”

“Thanks, guys,” said Kousuke. “I was going to head back to the arcade and check again. Let’s call an Uber right now.”

The four of them arrived at the arcade within ten minutes; as they walked around the area, Momo bumped into someone familiar.

“Hibiya-kun?” She asked. “Why do I keep bumping into you? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he said. “What are you guys doing here?”

“We’re looking for Marry,” said Kousuke. “She hasn’t been answering my calls and I’m getting a little worried.”

“Marry?” Hibiya echoed. “I saw her just a while ago around here.”

“Really?! Do you know which direction she headed towards?”

“Yeah, like, that way—”

“What’s going on?”

Takane, Haruka, and Shintaro approached the group, and involuntarily, Shuuya’s expression darkened at the sight of Shintaro Kisaragi. It wasn’t that he hated the guy — hate would be too strong of a word, after all. He just… disliked him. Ayano kept gushing about how cool of a person Shintaro is, but all Shuuya saw was an asshole who was way too full of himself. Besides, Shintaro was too close with Ayano for him to be happy about it.

“We can’t find Marry,” said Tsubomi. “Kousuke’s a little worried, since she hasn’t been replying or answering any calls.”

“We’ll look for her with you,” said Haruka. “Do you have any idea where she went?”

“Hibiya saw her last around this area, apparently,” said Kousuke.

“Yeah, I’ll lead the way.”

They headed away from the arcade, with Hibiya walking in front of the group. Eventually, they stopped in front of an alleyway, and Shuuya frowned at the sight of the place. It was dark and clearly led to a dead end, and if Marry was here, there might be some trouble.

“Are you sure it’s this place?” Momo asked, worried. “This doesn’t look like good news to me.”

“I’m pretty sure,” Hibiya said, his expression darkening. “So what’s the plan?”

“We’ll have to go and check, then,” said Kousuke, venturing forward. “Marry! Are you there?”

“Seto!”

Everyone tensed up at that voice — it was, without a doubt, Marry’s. Cursing under his breath, Shuuya rushed forward into the alleyway alongside everyone else. They saw her towards the end of the path, cornered by three other teenagers clad in black. But what caught their attention was what had happened to Marry; her long blonde hair was cut to an awkward shoulder length, the uneven edges showing that clearly, it was done against her will. She looked up in fright, red eyes brimming with tears as she saw her friends run towards her.

“Oh? Are these your friends?”

Shuuya only realized that there was another person standing on the side at a distance from Marry and the other three teenagers. He stared at them with an intrigued look on his face, and somehow, his presence radiated danger.

“Kuro?” Haruka asked. “What are you doing?”

“Shouldn’t that be my question instead?”

“You know this guy?” Shuuya asked Haruka, who nodded in response.

“He’s Kuroha Kokonose,” said Haruka. “He’s my twin brother.”

Now that he mentioned it, the teenager did have an unsettling resemblance to Haruka; how could they have not noticed it sooner? Maybe it was the fact that the two seemed completely different at first glance, with Kuroha simply looking like trouble.

“So you’ve decided to hide my existence from your friends, too,” said Kuroha. “What, am I not worth speaking of? Do I taint your reputation?”

“That’s not what—”

“Save it,” said Kuroha. “I don’t give a shit, anyways.”

“What are you guys doing to Marry?” Kousuke asked, red eyes narrowing into a glare.

“Oh, I like that look,” said Kuroha, sneering. “Are you guys going to use ‘the power of friendship’ to save her? It’s as if she’s the ‘Queen’ of your group, isn’t it? She’s the one who wandered in and decided to cause trouble; we didn’t do anything.”

“Do you think we’re going to believe that?” Takane yelled. “Let her go!”

Kuroha laughed. “And why would we simply comply? Causing trouble for ‘AZAMI’ comes with a price; you people need to know your place.”

AZAMI. The name was scarily familiar; everyone who lived in Mekaku City knew of this gang that terrified most people, even the adults. They liked to cause trouble and flaunted the fact proudly towards the public, and nobody was able to put them down. They liked fighting, and they were strong; nobody had been able to secure a victory against them before.

Think, Shuuya Kano, think. There’s gotta be some way for us to escape from these monsters in one piece. What could he do to help his friends? Briefly, images of the games he used to play with his siblings, the memories of the ‘Blindfold Gang’ flashed across his mind, and perhaps, just maybe this would be able to assist them.

“Didn’t you hear?” Shuuya said, doing his best to keep his voice from shaking. “I don’t think you want to fight with us. After all, we’re the ‘Blindfold Gang.’”

His friends stared at him, and so did the members of AZAMI. Come on, you fools, Shuuya thought to himself. Don’t let my deceiving go to waste. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Tsubomi and Kousuke look at each other and smile with understanding.

“The ‘Blindfold Gang?’” Kuroha echoed, eyes narrowing. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m Member No. 3, Kano,” said Shuuya proudly. “I don’t think it’d be good for any of us if we started a fight here, so I’m hoping we won’t need to resort to violence to have our precious member back.”

The members of AZAMI looked at each other, and Kuroha nodded at the other three. As they let go of Marry, the three teenagers gave her a shove towards the opposite direction, and Marry fell to the floor. Kousuke and Tsubomi quickly ran up to give her a hand, pulling her back up to her feet.

“Marry!” Kousuke exclaimed, clearly worried. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” said Marry, holding onto his sleeve as she hid behind him.

“You have you ‘Queen’ back now,” said Kuroha. “But who says you’ll be able to leave so easily?”

Aw, shit. “Like I said, we don’t want to turn this into a fight,” said Shuuya. “There’s no need to resort to violence.”

“Oh, but we do,” said Kuroha, cracking his knuckles as he and his friends approached them. “If you really claim to be so strong, why not test your abilities against us? We’ll be the judge.”

“What do you think, ‘Leader?’” Shuuya asked, turning to Tsubomi. Ah, he’ll probably get a beating by her no matter what happens with AZAMI for this…

Tsubomi sighed. “I guess it can’t be helped,” she said. “Sorry, guys, but this is apparently the only way they’ll let us leave.”

Kuroha’s lips tugged upwards to form a sinister smile. “That’s more like it!” he said, cackling. “Now, let the show begin.”

As AZAMI dashed at them, Shuuya sighed and silently prayed that his friends were physically strong enough to handle it; best case scenario, they’ll walk away with some wounds, nothing too bad. Worst case scenario… Well, he certainly hoped that it wouldn’t come down to that.

But maybe, just maybe, they had a chance. There were only four members of AZAMI present, and they had nine people. Despite having little to no hopes for winning, as punches and kicks were thrown, Shuuya started to see that hope was always there, and the light at the end of the tunnel was getting closer and closer.

Within a few minutes, Kuroha took a step back and turned away. “This is getting boring,” he said, yawning and walking away. “Go ahead and leave, but remember, you guys haven’t won.”

With that, the four teenagers left the alleyway, leaving the newly formed ‘Blindfold Gang’ alone to stare at each other and process what had just happened. Tsubomi looked furious, and Shuuya sighed as he braced himself for whatever beating or lecture he had gotten himself into.

“What were you thinking?” Tsubomi yelled. “Do you know how dangerous that was? How absolutely terrifying that was? Did you have to do that?”

“Sorry, sorry,” said Shuuya, and he really meant it this time. “I couldn’t think of anything else that could’ve made the situation better.”

“Yeah, because you’re stupid,” said Tsubomi, massaging her temples. “Now what are we going to do? I know there’s going to be rumors about how we apparently ‘defeated AZAMI’ and all that.”

“I mean, we kind of did, huh?” Momo said. “It’s almost unbelievable.”

“Don’t be so naive,” said Takane, sighing. “They only had four people here; if all of them were present, we wouldn’t stand a chance. Besides, the only reason the fight ended was because Kuroha walked away. We didn’t actually defeat them.”

“But doesn’t that just mean we have to become stronger?” Haruka asked. “It was kind of fun!”

“This isn’t all fun and games,” said Shintaro. “It can actually get dangerous, you know.”

“Yeah, this definitely got out of hand,” said Takane, sighing. “What are we gonna do with this new title? The… What was it, the ‘Meka Meka Gang?’”

“The ‘Blindfold Gang!’” said Shuuya. “It’s a game we always used to play. Tsubomi’s No. 1, codenamed ‘Kido,’ Kousuke’s No. 2, codenamed ‘Seto,’ and I’m No. 3, codenamed ‘Kano!’”

“Bruh, they’re just your last names,” said Takane, raising an eyebrow.

“Ooh! Can I be codename ‘Konoha?’” Haruka asked excitedly.

“This isn’t a game, Haruka,” said Takane.

“Konoha! It’s Konoha now!”

“Haruka, you—”

“Konoha!”

“Okay, Konoha! Jesus Christ.”

“This will be fun! Don’t you think so, ‘Ene?’”

As Ene tried to strangle Konoha over her codename, Kano couldn’t help but laugh. Kido and Seto stared at him, but he shook his head and smiled at them.

“Hey, Kido, say the thing you always say at the end of a mission,” said Kano.

Kido scrunched up her nose. “No, that’s cringey as hell now. I think I’m good.”

“Come on, say it! We have to follow with tradition.”

“…Blindfold complete.”

Now, that concludes “the story of children’s faces.” The rest, only the summer haze will tell us.

Chapter Text

He averted his gaze when his red eyes met her brown ones for the first time, ignoring her smile that stretched from ear to ear. He hated that smile, the one that seemed to melt the ice in his heart, making him want to open up again. He’s never liked people — hated them, in fact, but something about her drew him towards her. He never understood it, nor did he want to, so he simply looked away from her gaze that seemed to break down the walls he built up inside. 

No matter how mean, how terrible, how much of an asshole he was to her, she never seemed to give up. To him, it seemed like she never despaired; when he picked up his pace and ran from her, she caught up to him with however much enthusiasm he had with dread. Eventually, he sighed and gave in, just enough to make her happy — perhaps just enough to make himself happy, too. 

He knew he was a cold-hearted guy — there was no need to remind him of such a fact. His apathetic nature had become engrained in his personality, and it troubled him to see her put in so much effort for someone like him. He prayed, he begged for her to stop touching his heart that already wanted to disappear, any more than she already was. 

But when she did what he hoped for, he found himself unable to live without that smile.

“Go the fuck away! Just leave me alone already!” 

The moment those harsh words left his mouth, he was left with bottomless regret. Hesitantly, he opened his eyes to look toward her; he didn’t want to see how his words impacted her, and he was terrified to see how she reacted. Instead of the hurt and disappointment he expected to see on her face, she smiled at him, and god, that soft smile hurt to see. 

“I won’t leave,” she said softly, taking his hand in hers. Her skin against his own electrified him with a million volts, and he flinched at her touch, at how much he wanted her touch. This wasn’t right, and he no longer wanted to feel this way — she was making him feverishly soft, and he wanted her to just leave.

Underneath the scorching sun, he stared at her, and she stared back with equal determination. It infuriated him as much as the summer heat did, but he learned to bear with one and could never understand the other, and nor did he want to — at least, that’s what he tried to convince himself was the case.

Maybe he was scared of her. It was as if she could see right through his guise and his aloof shell, and her soft gaze at the core of his heart terrified him. Her kindness was a treasure that anyone would appreciate; that is, anyone but him, for her gentle nature burdened him with a type of love he didn’t deserve to feel. 

“You’re annoying,” he spat at her, venom lacing his every word. At this, she seemed to flinch, and he took his opportunity to brush off her hand. Without another glance back at her, he took long strides forward, running away from her as if she were a monster. But really, he was the monster — he didn’t deserve her, and he knew it himself. 

As he reached the end of that hilly road, he took a glance back at the path behind him. She wasn’t there, and he sighed, although he wasn’t quite sure whether it was a sigh of relief or a sigh of disappointment. Reaching Apartment 107, he paused before the door, deep in thought and regret over his actions.

He’ll have to apologize to her tomorrow. 

Shintaro couldn’t stop fidgeting in his seat as he arrived at school. It wasn’t that he hadn’t apologized to her before; he wasn’t that much of an asshole, okay? But every time she forgave him, the deep-rooted guilt in his heart blossomed, and he felt increasingly regretful in his interactions with her as he wallowed in self-hatred. 

She was late; that’s strange. She was the only friend he had in this class; Ene and Konoha were in his other classes, Actor wasn’t close enough for him to bond with her, Kuroha wasn’t a friend, and the rest of the gang were younger, so he never saw them in class. He couldn’t help but glance at the seat next to him, at where she should be sitting, where she usually gently whispered “good morning, Shintaro” with that stupid smile of hers. 

The students around him seemed louder than usual, and generally, Shintaro tuned them out; the meaningless gossip and drama that teenagers indulged themselves in never interested him, but today, he’s got nothing better to do, so he decides to listen in. 

“Did you hear that someone fell from the rooftop yesterday?”

“Oh shit, no way? Who was it?”

“I heard about it on the way to class! But I didn’t hear who it was.”

“I heard about it, too! All I know is that it was a girl in our grade. Her family was notified only this morning, since her condition only became somewhat stable, like, thirty minutes ago or something.”

“Oh, so were those three kids at the office her siblings? One of them called her ‘Aya-nee,’ so maybe her name was ‘Ayane?’ Or ‘Ayaka?’ Or maybe just ‘Aya.’ I wonder who it is…”

A girl in senior year. Three siblings. ‘Aya-nee.’

Shintaro’s blood ran cold as his classmates continued to speak. Their words blurred together and began to sound like television static, an agonizing sound to his ears. It hurt, everything hurt, and he wanted the hurting to stop. Trembling, his gaze fell on the empty spot next to him, at the spot where his classmate and friend, apparently late to class today, was supposed to be. 

It couldn’t be. 

Immediately, he bolted up from his seat, causing several of his classmates to stare at him in confusion. Gathering his backpack, he dashed out of the classroom, aware that he would be regarded as even more of an outcast now. But that didn’t matter — he ran faster than the mile run in freshman year that he nearly passed out from while cursing under his breath, pulling out his phone to dial Kido’s number. 

“Hey, Kido,” he said, struggling to keep his panting to a minimum. “Where are you guys right now?”

“Why would you want to know?”

He stopped in his tracks as he furrowed his brows in confusion at the voice. “Kano? What’s going on?”

“I should be asking you that question,” said Kano, oddly calm and composed. “Where were you yesterday? Weren’t you with Aya-nee?”

“Where’s Kido?” Shintaro said, sighing. He didn’t have time to deal with Kano’s overprotectiveness of his sister; he needed to know where Ayano was. “Put her on the phone.”

“She’s asleep,” said Kano, his voice softening at the mention of their leader. “Overly exhausted from crying. But don’t change the subject. Weren’t you with Aya-nee yesterday after school?”

“I was, but—”

“Then why didn’t you save her?”

Shintaro was taken aback by the sheer coldness in Kano’s voice. He knew the boy didn’t like him very much, and he’s accepted it as something he’d have to deal with as long as he was part of the Blindfold Gang, but Kano was never outright hostile towards him.

“Listen, I don’t even know what’s going on,” said Shintaro, exasperated. “Could you just please tell me where you guys are right now?”

“Golden Oak Hospital,” said Seto; he must have taken the phone from Kano. “I’ll come meet you at the front when you get here.”

Without another word, Shintaro quickly called an Uber, cursing under his breath about his inability to drive. What an idiot, he scolded himself as he paced around the school gates, staring with annoyance at the progress bar of the car getting closer to his spot on the screen. He really shouldn’t have procrastinated and let his permit expire a year ago like the dumb fuck he is. 

Even though he arrived within a few minutes, the car ride was agonizingly long. As he stared at the scenery flashing past him in the window, Kano’s words echoed in his mind. Why didn’t he save her? She was there with him yesterday afternoon; why didn’t he stay by her side? Moreover, what happened to her?

Shintaro almost tripped as he stumbled off of the Uber and dashed through the hospital doors. Seto stood at the front, just as promised; he was paler than usual, and Shintaro clenched his fists and braced himself for whatever news he would hear. 

“What happened?”

“We just know that she fell from the school rooftop after school yesterday,” said Seto solemnly. “Her condition’s safe as of right now, but she hasn’t regained consciousness yet. They notified Mom and Dad after she was sent to the hospital, but Mom didn’t want to tell us until this morning because she was worried that we’d stress too much.”

“Why is he here?”

The snarky tone in Kano’s voice was a 180 from his usual mischievous and carefree nature. He stared at Shintaro with a disgust that made Shintaro wince as he approached Kano. Beside him, Kido was curled up on the bench, fast asleep. 

“Kano,” Seto said with a warning tone. “Don’t be like this.”

“Whose side are you on, Seto?” Kano spat. “Don’t tell me you don’t give a shit about what happens to Aya-nee.”

“There are no sides,” said Seto, sighing as he ran a hand through his hair. “This isn’t a  fight. There’s no need to be like this.”

“Like this?” Kano scoffed, and he turned to Shintaro. “I don’t want someone who doesn’t give a shit about Aya-nee here.”

“What are you saying?” Shintaro said, his expression darkening as he furrowed his brows. “Do you know that you’re being ridiculous? I’m here because I care.”

“Really, now?” Kano laughed in disbelief. “You didn’t seem to care when you abandoned her yesterday.”

“I didn’t,” said Shintaro, his blood running cold as he recalled yesterday’s happenings. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, don’t even try me. I know a liar when I see one.”

“That’s rich, coming from you.”

“Don’t try me, Kisaragi. You didn’t seem to care when you decided to treat her like shit all these years. Who the fuck do you think you are, some almighty god who can kick her away like a toy and then make her crawl back to you with a single command?”

“That’s not—”

“You pretend that you care about her, but really, all you care about is yourself. After everything she’s done for you, you never even made any effort to do anything for her. You couldn’t save her, nor did you want to.”

“I—”

“You disgust me, Kisaragi. You—”

“That’s enough.” 

Kido’s tired voice cut Kano off, and the trio looked toward the bench where Kido was resting. She was awake now, but she looked pale and miserable. 

“Kido,” said Seto, walking over and lending her a hand to get up. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she responded. “But Kano, that’s too much. We’re all worried about Aya-nee, but so is Shintaro. There’s no need for this, especially right now.”

“But Kido—”

“You know what,” Shintaro said as the siblings looked at him. “Kano’s right. Why am I here? Clearly I don’t give a shit about Ayano. I’m going home.”

Without another word, he turned around and left the hospital. His mind was wiped blank as he sat in the back of the Uber, and after he arrived back at Apartment 107, slammed the door of his room shut and sat down in the corner, he let out a long breath as he ran a hand through his hair. 

He recalled yesterday’s setting sun as they walked along the hilly road. He remembered how he shook off her hand and walked on forward without even a glance back; he could imagine her hurt expression, and he just wanted to disappear altogether. Slowly, the memories he shoved to the back of his head resurfaced — those times he didn't want to remember anymore were proven to haunt him forever. 

The first time they met, she energetically introduced herself to him; she seemed excited to be a high schooler, something that Shintaro didn’t understand. What was there to be excited about on the first day of high school? It was stupid, and so was she, so all he did was turn his head to the other direction and ignore her stupid smile. 

So many times, in so many instances, he yelled at her for no reason. His frustration stemmed from her, after all, but really, did she do anything wrong?

What if this time, he’d lost her for real?

He hadn’t cried since his father’s funeral, but even then, he was focused on keeping Momo company and making sure she was okay before crying on his own when nobody was around. Today, too, he was alone as he closed his eyes and the sobs broke free, the suffocating regret pushing him deeper into despair. 

After two days, Ayano still remained unconscious. The rumors around school had died down, as nobody knew who it was and therefore, everyone promptly decided to move on with their lives. Oblivion was a curious thing, revealing how truly unsympathetic people were at their core.

The gang became subdued, and laughter seemed to vanish for those two days. Nobody dared to or was in the mood to share jokes and have fun — it seemed inappropriate to do so. Shintaro shut himself in his room more than ever, only leaving for food, water, or the bathroom. He didn’t go to school — how could he face the school campus, where everything reminded him of her?

But on the third day, he decided that his wouldn’t do. If he didn’t do something for her, he’d regret it for the rest of his life, whether she lived or… Anyway. Nobody ever found out what had happened that afternoon Ayano fell from the rooftop, and he decided that he need to know. 

He knew a number of clubs stayed after school for practice or activities that day. He could probably rule out the sports teams, who practiced either in the gym or on the field, but the rest he’d have to ask one by one. He hated talking to people, hated socializing, but if it’s for her, he’d push himself to do it. 

After speaking with five club presidents, he felt like giving up; there were too many clubs on campus — how could he ever find someone who just happened to be there? Perhaps he needed a new approach. With a dejected attitude, he went to talk with the next person on his list. 

“The rooftop three days ago?” The dance team captain echoed. “Oh yeah, we practiced there for a bit.” 

“Was there anyone else there around 5PM?” Shintaro asked.

“Oof, we left before that. Sorry, not sure about that one,” said the dance team captain.

“Sorry for bothering you, then,” Shintaro said, sighing. Of course it wouldn’t be that easy, would it?

“Oh, but we left only a few minutes before then, and we bumped into someone while we were leaving,” the dance team captain added. “She said she had a phone call to take and might be there for a bit. Oh my god, I bet it was her secret boyfriend from another school or something.”

“Who was it?” Shintaro stuttered, stumbling over his words. Could it be that there was hope after all? 

“Nicole Fujimura. Ah, I don’t even have to describe her to you; you probably know who she is.”

Fuck.

He definitely knew who she was; in fact, was there anyone in their school who didn’t know who she was? Nicole Fujimura, queen bee, most popular girl at school, blah blah blah. He had no interest in her whatsoever, but most of the school was head over heels in love with her. Objectively yeah, she was pretty, but Shintaro didn’t have time to waste on some dumb hoe who didn’t give a shit about anything or anyone other than herself. 

He quickly thanked the dance team captain and headed to the courtyard, where Nicole’s group was bound to be having lunch. He was a little nervous; he’d never really spoken to her before, and if the rumors were true, she wasn’t really the most pleasant person to be with. 

Even with her large group of friends, Nicole stood out from them; she was impossible to miss. Gathering up his courage, he walked up to them; immediately, they quieted down as they stared him, wondering what ‘someone like him’ wanted from ‘someone like her.’

“Fujimura-san, can I speak to you for a second?” Shintaro asked. 

The other girls knowingly stared at Nicole, who sighed and stood up. Shintaro wanted to slap himself or just simply perish; clearly, they had the wrong idea. The two of them moved a distance away from the group and stood under a tree, and Shintaro sighed before speaking. 

“Before you and your friends make the wrong impression, this isn’t a love confession,” he said. “I’m sorry if it seemed like that.”

“Oh,” said Nicole quizzically. “Interesting. How can I help you, then?”

“I heard from the dance team captain that you were on the rooftop three days ago around 5PM. She mentioned you were taking a call and that you said you’d be there for a bit?”

“What about it?” To his surprise, Nicole’s tone suddenly became defensive, and it was clear that she was trying to hide something. 

“Did you see a girl fall off the rooftop?”

“No.”

Shintaro narrowed his eyes at her immediate response. “Are you telling the truth?”

“Are you insinuating that I’m lying?” Nicole asked, folding her arms over her chest. “A bold statement, if you ask me.”

“Clearly, you had to have seen something,” Shintaro insisted. “You were there the time she fell. Please, if you saw something, please tell me.”

“And why does that have anything to do with you?” Nicole retorted. “What are you gonna do with that information? Have you ever considered that it’s just a stupid rumor someone started? It’s probably not real, anyways.”

“Because I know her.”

Nicole seemed visibly conflicted as she dropped her arms to her sides. Shintaro bit his lip as he continued: “She’s really important to me. I’ve never been able to help her; this time, I want to do something for her. So please, I’m begging you… I need to know what happened that day, whether it was an accident, or if… if she did it willingly.”

“Then beg.”

Shintaro looked up at Nicole, who had her hands on her hips and stared at him with a stern expression. He looked at her with disbelief, but he did as he was told — for Ayano, his dignity was nothing. He dropped to his knees and was just about to put his head down to the floor when she grabbed his wrist and yanked him back up.

“What the fuck, I didn’t think you’d actually do that,” Nicole hissed. “Do you have no shame? Everyone’s gonna stare at us now!”

“You’re the one who told me to do it!” Shintaro stared at her, confused; maybe she did have some human decency after all, unlike what all the rumors said. 

“I know, I just—” She ran a hand through her neatly circled hair and sighed in exasperation. “Whatever, forget it. Christ, I’ll help you, so don’t do that ever again, goddamn. But you’re going to help me with something, too.”

“How can I help you?”

“Are you good at schoolwork, by any chance?”

Shintaro raised an eyebrow at her question. “Well… Yes, I assume so,” he responded. Maybe he sounded a little too obnoxious with that statement, but he was so used to being praised for his photographic memory that it had already become more of a fact than something to boast about. 

“Lovely. Clear your schedule for this afternoon and tonight; you’re going to help me tutor my siblings.”

“Uh, sure, I guess.” Shintaro himself had no objections; he often tutored many of the members of the Blindfold Gang, including his own sister, who… was already a lost cause. He’s pretty used to it by now, so tutoring another one or two kids couldn’t be that bad; in fact, was that all he needed to do? Honestly, he expected more arduous work. 

“Great. I’ll pick you up after school,” said Nicole. “We’ll meet right here. I forgot to ask — what’s your name?”

“Shintaro Kisaragi.”

“Wait…” Nicole stared at him. “Aren’t you, like, a super genius or something? I hear teachers praise you all the time for, like, never getting below a 95.”

“I guess that’s me.”

“Well, your smart brains will come in handy this afternoon when kids start screaming at you about how they don’t understand anything,” Nicole said, sighing. “I’ll see you later.”

With that, she walked off, and Shintaro was left wondering what exactly he got himself into. 

“You’re late,” Nicole said, swinging her limited edition Chanel bag over her shoulder. “Come on, let’s go.”

“Doesn’t it make you look bad or something if people see us together?” Shintaro asked as he followed her. 

“Well, as I was waiting for you, I parked my car closer to where we are right now, and this parking lot is mainly used by staff, so it shouldn’t be a problem,” said Nicole, fishing around in her purse for her car keys. Shintaro sat down in the passenger seat of Nicole’s white Porsche, wondering where these kids got their money from (probably Daddy’s credit card, huh).

She seemed to be nicer than the rumors made her seem. So far, Nicole Fujimura had been understanding enough, save for her original snarky attitude and her command for him to beg, which she asserted was because she didn’t think he’d actually do it.

Curiously, she seemed to be nothing like her rumors — she was supposed to be bossy, self-centered, and uninterested in everyone else. Shintaro had heard from passing conversations that she had dated multiple rich men at the same time or that she kept blackmail material of various students that had gotten in her way before, but somehow, it seemed like the rumors weren’t so real anymore. 

As they arrived at a large house in a wealth gated community, Shintaro shook his head again at the wealth disparity he could see between him and Nicole. 

“I’m home,” Nicole called out as they entered the house. They walked into the living room, where Shintaro saw four other kids — damn, that’s a huge living room, and damn, that’s a lot of siblings.

“Who’s he?” said the oldest one, who looked like a freshman or sophomore in high school. “Not your boyfriend, right? Because you can do better than that.”

“Hey, be nice, Nozomu,” Nicole frowned. “Basically, our usual tutor blew us off and there was no one else available for this time slot, so I found us a new tutor for today. This is Shintaro Kisaragi, also a senior at my school. Everyone be nice and say hi!”

“Nice to meet you,” the kids chorused, and Shintaro could only nod in response. 

“These are my siblings,” Nicole said to Shintaro. “The youngest is Cocoa; she’s in second grade. Next is Hiro, who’s in sixth grade, and then Rachel, who’s in eighth grade. Lastly, that’s Nozomu, sophomore in high school.”

“I’ve seen you around school before, Kisaragi-senpai,” said Nozomu. “Aren’t you part of some gang or something? How can we be sure that you’ll be able to help us?”

“Well, if there’s one thing I can be proud of, it’s my grades,” said Shintaro, raising an eyebrow. “If you still have your doubts, you can find out for yourself. Is there anything specific you guys are studying for, or are you just working on homework today?”

“Cocoa and Hiro mainly just have homework, but Rachel’s studying for a math exam and Nozomu is studying for the SAT,” said Nicole, sighing. “Usually, I help Cocoa and Hiro while the tutor works with the other two, but without a tutor, there’s hardly any way I’m qualified to help Nozomu with the SAT. I barely passed my own with a satisfactory score.”

“I can probably handle it,” said Shintaro. “I’ll start with the two older kids; I’ll let you know when I’ve gotten them started on work.”

“You seem pretty confident to this whole tutoring thing,” Nicole said. “I’m impressed.”

“What can I say?” Shintaro shrugged. “All my friends are academically inept. I’m pretty used to this.” 

“Well, then, you guys can have the space in the living room,” said Nicole. “I’ll work with Hiro and Cocoa at the dining table.”

“Understood.”

For the next six hours, Shintaro worked with Rachel and Nozomu; he had Nozomu take a practice test in the study while he tutored Rachel on linear equations and functions. Rachel confessed that she despised math and could never make sense of it, but after Shintaro’s explanations and teachings, she seemed to have a stronger grasp of the concepts.

Nozomu’s problem with the SAT wasn’t that he didn’t have the knowledge, but rather he made many mistakes he shouldn’t have made if he didn’t rush to finish. Shintaro made sure Nozomu knew to not rush while working through the problems and check his work after finishing with the time remaining. 

They had dinner during their tutoring session; Nicole drove out and brought back takeout for all of them, and by the time they finished, it was getting rather late.

“Thanks for helping me out,” said Nicole as her siblings went upstairs to relax or study some more. “You want anything to drink?”

“Soda, if you have it. And no problem,” said Shintaro as they sat down at the dining table. “I do this pretty often for the gang, anyways; I’m pretty used to it. Your siblings are definitely smarter than my sister — Momo’s pretty much hopeless and I cringe every time she makes me help her.”

Nicole furrowed her eyebrows as she returned from the kitchen with a can of coke and a cup of iced tea. “Momo… Momo Kisaragi?! Wait, she’s your sister? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You didn’t ask.”

“If I knew you were Momo-chan’s brother, I would’ve been a little nicer initially,” said Nicole. “I had no idea!”

It was Shintaro’s turn to be surprised now. “Wait, you’re friends with Momo?”

“Yeah, we hang out outside of school sometimes,” said Nicole, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “She’s super cute! Super sweet, too. Love being around her.”

Shintaro cringed. “She’s a demon,” he said. “One time, she spilled soda in the rabbit food. Tono had nothing to eat until we finally stopped arguing and brought back another pack.”

Nicole laughed. “You had a rabbit?” She asked incredulously. “You don’t seem like a rabbit person.”

Shintaro rolled his eyes. “Well, I guess I was,” he said. “Tono’s back at my mother’s house, since I don’t live at home anymore and taking care of a rabbit in an apartment of eight other people didn’t seem like a good idea. But that’s not the point.”

“You’re part of the Blindfold Gang, huh,” said Nicole, taking a sip out of her glass. “I remember hearing about you guys.”

“I hear about you a lot, too,” said Shintaro, laughing. “And if I’m being honest, it’s not all good, either.”

“I know.” Nicole sighed as she stared at her drink. “I hear rumors about myself, too. They say I’m hard to approach, don’t they? Some people think I’m really full of myself, others think that I don’t care about the people around me… Really, it’s frustrating at times.”

“They just haven’t interacted with you before. I thought so too before I talked to you; it was hard to approach you earlier today.”

“There’s really nothing to be afraid of; I love talking to new people. Too bad everyone I talk to seems to have some ulterior motive and if they don’t get what they want, they’ll start up some crazy rumor about me.”

“So the rumors about dating multiple rich guys and keeping blackmail on people who have crossed you…”

Nicole grimaced. “Fake. Definitely fake. Ew, what the fuck?”

“Well, once people get to actually talk to you, I’m sure they’ll realize that the rumors are fake themselves,” Shintaro laughed. “Well, I certainly envy how you can talk to so many people without getting nervous about social interaction. I can never do that; getting to know my friends in the beginning was hard enough.”

“You definitely give off social recluse vibes, and that’s what I thought of you before I interacted with you. But hey, now I just think you’re a great guy who helped my siblings with their work more than any tutor could.”

“Thanks, I guess,” said Shintaro. “If I were really a great guy, I would’ve stopped that from happening.”

Nicole looked at him sympathetically. “It’s not your fault,” she whispered. “It… It really isn’t.”

“Can you tell me what happened that day?”

“Tell me something first.” Nicole said sternly. “Who is Tateyama-san to you?”

Shintaro stayed silent for a while, lost in thought. Deep down, he knew the answer, but he was always afraid, afraid of accepting. That’s why he pushed those feelings away, just like how he pushed her hand away — but maybe, just maybe, it was time for him to face himself. 

“Ayano is… my classmate. I’ve known her since freshman year, and ever since then she’s been trying to understand me. But I never gave her the chance to, because I was scared. She’s my friend, someone who’s kind to me even though I gave her no reason to be, but even so, she stuck by my side. After all I’ve done, I may not have any right to stay by her side, but I love her.”

Nicole smiled at his words. “I see. Now for the moment you’ve been waiting for. Tateyama-san’s… incident. Before I tell you, I do have to warn you, though. It’s… not a fun story, and I needed to know how you feel about her before I continued.”

Shintaro closed his eyes and nodded. Finally, he was about to find out what exactly happened that day; a million scenarios had flashed through his mind when he heard the news. Did she accidentally fall? Or did she mean to end her own life? He didn’t know. But now, he was going to find out. 

“That afternoon, I had to take a call from the tutor— yes, the same tutor that was supposed to be here today,” said Nicole, rolling her eyes. “I was supposed to make further arrangements for the next two weeks, but he suddenly bailed on me. I was really mad, so I stayed there for a while, fuming. And then I saw Tateyama-san enter the rooftop area, and a few moments after that, another guy came as well.

“I was sitting behind the wall, so they didn’t notice me. I didn’t mean to listen in to their conversation, but hey, I couldn’t help myself. The guy confessed to her and asked her to be his girlfriend, but she rejected him. He… got really mad, and… There was a bit of struggling, but she wasn’t any match for his strength. At the end, he… pushed her off the edge.”

Never did Shintaro ever think that this was what had happened. He thought the worst was that Ayano threw herself off the rooftop willingly in an attempt to leave the world behind, and he would never ever forgive himself for that if it happened, but this… It was even more unbelievable. 

“Who is it?” He asked through gritted teeth, trying to control his anger. “Do you know? Who did something like this?”

“Sousuke Watanabe. Tall, decently good-looking, captain of the baseball team…”

“I know him,” Shintaro said, letting out a shaky breath. “That bastard. I can’t believe… He— God, that’s disgusting.”

“I know,” Nicole said. “I’m sorry I didn’t want to help you initially. I did think you were just another person who believed in the rumors a little too much at first, but even so, I didn’t want to risk it. If I got involved, someone like him might try to hurt me or my family, and I couldn’t take that risk.”

“I understand.”

“But now, seeing how you’re affected by this event and how cruel it would be for Tateyama-san if that bastard got away with things… I can’t just stand around and do nothing. I’m willing to be a witness; I assume you want to report this to the police.”

“Of course,” said Shintaro. “But that’s not enough. I need him to admit to it.”

“How?” Nicole asked. “There’s no way he’s going to do that. He takes his pride seriously; he’s just going to lie his way out of it.”

“Don’t worry. I have a plan.”

“So you’re Kisaragi-kun. How can I help you?”

Shintaro stared at the guy in front of him; Sousuke Watanabe, one of the most popular guys at school, good looks, athletic, smart, friendly to everyone… Oh, how surprising it was to hear that he was the culprit of attempted murder. 

“Hopefully we can finish this conversation quickly,” said Sousuke. “I believe we both have a class to get to in around ten minutes.”

“Yeah, I hope to get this over with soon, too,” said Shintaro.

“Don’t tell me this is a love confession; sorry, I’m into girls.”

“You really do get confessed to very often, don’t you?” Shintaro laughed. “It would be a shame if you ever got rejected, wouldn’t it?”

Sousuke laughed good-naturedly. “Ah, I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t expect everyone to like me; I’m bound to get rejected one day.”

“Interesting way you handled it four days ago.”

Sousuke’s rigid smile stayed plastered on his face, but there was clear anger burning behind that mask. “What are you talking about?”

“You already forgot about the girl you confessed to four days ago? That’s a little cold of you, wouldn’t you say?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Sousuke, averting his gaze. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a class to get to.”

“You know, it’s really sad,” said Shintaro, and Sousuke stopped in his tracks. “How you think that by doing this, you’d have some sort of satisfaction within you. Do you think that in doing something like this, your loneliness would be salvaged? That you would start to actually feel something within that heart of yours?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Honestly, I’m not interested in your intensions or your tragic backstory,” said Shintaro as Sousuke turned around to face him again. “I really couldn’t care less. But you know, I just can’t help but pity you.”

“You—”

“You’re eighteen now, but you still act like a kid, throwing a tantrum when you can’t get what you want. You’re a legal adult now, and yet you still can’t control your emotions properly. I don’t know if it’s the lack of a loving family or a warmth household, and honestly, you know, I’m not interested and don’t want to find out. I just think it’s really pitiful how much of a child you are.”

“Shut up. Shut—”

“Nobody could save you, and yet, you couldn’t save yourself either. From the bottom of my heart, I pity your loneliness.”

Shintaro stared at Sousuke, and Sousuke stared back at him — it was clear that bit by bit, his facade was crumbling; he just had to wait a little longer, just a little longer—

“SHUT UP!” With a swift movement, Sousuke grabbed Shintaro by the collar and raised him into the air. Shintaro coughed as his clothing tightened around his neck. Step by step, Sousuke started walking closer and closer to the edge. 

“I did it because I wanted to,” Sousuke hissed. “Not because of any sob story or because anyone else told me to. I pushed that Tateyama girl off the rooftop because I wanted to do it! How dare she reject me? How dare she look at me in that way? I managed to kill that bitch in the end, so there’s nothing you have to pity me for, because you’re going to meet the same end as her, and you won’t live to tell the story, so I’ll be all safe.”

The door to the rooftop area burst open, causing Sousuke to look hastily in that direction. Taking this opportunity, Shintaro put all his strength in his feet and gave the hardest possible kick to Sousuke’s shin. Yelping in pain, Sousuke released Shintaro from his grasp, and the latter fell to the floor, gasping for air.

Sousuke tried to escape back through the door and down the stairs, but he was faced with two of their gym coaches staring him down. Immediately, they restrained him, pulling his arms back as they ignored his protests.

“Kisaragi!”

Nicole ran out from the corner she’d been hiding in and helped him up. Shintaro coughed a few times before catching his breath and staring right at Sousuke. 

“What the fuck,” said Sousuke scathingly. “What is all of this?”

“Since you can’t possibly comprehend what had happened with that brain of yours, I’ll explain,” said Shintaro, a smug smile dancing upon his face. “Fujimura’s been here the entire time. That little incident was captured by her phone and shown to the entire school via livestream. We told the teachers beforehand and had them wait behind the door once you got here, just in case you decided to do something; I guess that was a wise decision. We did inform the police already, so just wait until you get interrogated again.”

“You—”

“Oh, I forgot to mention,” said Shintaro, smirking. “Fujimura’s a witness. She saw you push Ayano off the rooftop that day. I just wanted you to admit what you did yourself.”

“Shintaro Kisaragi, you motherfucker—”

“And also, you were wrong.” Shintaro smiled. “You didn’t kill Ayano; she hasn’t regained consciousness, but she’s still alive. So really, you weren’t able to do it in the end.”

“You—”

“Go to hell, Sousuke Watanabe. I don’t want to see you ever again.”

As the gym teachers escorted a cursing Sousuke away to where the police were waiting, Shintaro let out a long sigh. That was the most ‘main protagonist’ type thing he’d ever done, and probably the last ‘main character’ type thing he’d do in a while, but he’s glad that his plan went well. 

“Seriously, that was a little reckless,” said Nicole. “He could’ve killed you.”

“Even so, we would’ve got enough evidence to put him under arrest,” said Shintaro. “That’s good enough.”

“No, it wouldn’t,” said Nicole, rolling her eyes. “You have to live in order to see Ayano again. But hey, that was a pretty smart plan.”

“Couldn’t have done it without your help,” said Shintaro. “Thanks, Fujimura. I really owe you one.”

“Well, if you really think you owe me something, you better go tell Tateyama-san about how you feel.” 

“Yeah. Yeah, I will.” 

Shintaro was about to head to class when his phone rang; it was Kido, and he immediately tensed up. Did his friends see what he did? He picked up, wondering if Leader had something to say about his actions.

“Shintaro! Aya-nee regained consciousness!”

He’d never been this nervous before; standing in front of Ayano’s hospital room, Shintaro could feel his heartbeat in his throat. After that phone call, he hastily bolted down the stairs toward the parking lot. Nicole offered him a ride, and he accepted; it was for sure faster than any Uber he could get. She definitely went over the speed limit at times, but thanks to her, he got there in time. 

He couldn’t imagine how their rencounter would be. He hadn’t seen her for four days, but it felt like the longest four days of his life, where he lived in anxiety and anticipation for every waking second. In his dreams, his chest ached as he saw her fall over and over and over again, and he was unable to do anything to help her. 

With a final slap of his face he gave himself, he built up his courage and opened the door. At his entrance, Kido, Seto, and Kano approached him. 

“We saw what you did,” said Kido. “That was… I don’t even know how to describe it. Wow.”

“You’re going to have to tell us all about what exactly happened later,” said Seto, patting him on the back. “But we’ll leave you alone for now. Kano does have something to say, though.”

Shintaro looked at Kano; their last interaction was a little… unpleasant, to put it nicely. He didn’t know what Kano had to say, but he prayed for it to be nicer that whatever he said last time. 

“Hey, uh, look,” said Kano, sighing. “I’m sorry. I was definitely way too harsh for no reason. I was really worried about Aya-nee at the time, and so I just decided to blame you instead. I thought you were someone who only cared about yourself, but clearly… that isn’t the case. What you did for Aya-nee was incredible, and I hope you can forgive my previous words.”

“No problem,” said Shintaro, smiling slightly. “I forgive you. Let’s just move past that.”

“Lovely,” said Kido. “I’ll still beat his ass for saying those things, though. But for now, we’ll leave you two to yourselves.” The siblings left, and Shintaro walked up to Ayano, who stared at him, clearly amused. 

“Hey, Shintaro,” she said, smiling. “Good morning.”

He didn’t know if he wanted to laugh or if he wanted to cry. It was so good to see her again, those brown eyes, that familiar voice, that smile— that beautiful smile. He sat down next to her and stared at her, resisting the urge to pull her in for a hug. 

“How are you doing?” He asked. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she laughed. “I feel completely fine. Shintaro, are you worried?”

“How can anyone not worry in that situation? God, you almost died, you know?”

She smiled sheepishly as she stared at her hands. “It still feels unreal,” she said slowly. “It’s really weird; it almost feels like what happened four days ago was a part of a long dream.”

“Tell me what happened,” said Shintaro. “I want to hear it from you.”

“Well,” said Ayano. “After you left, I got a text saying that someone found my student ID at school, so I went back to retrieve it. I was told to go to the rooftop, so I did, and there, I found Watanabe-kun. He apologized for lying and said that the reason why he asked me to come here was because he had something to tell me. He then asked me to be his girlfriend, and then I said no, and then he got really really mad and scary… And then the rest I’m sure you can imagine.”

“That bastard,” Shintaro said through gritted teeth. “Disgusting son of a—”

“Ah, but it’s all okay now,” Ayano said quickly. “I regained consciousness early this morning, and I got to talk to my family. After my parents left, I was talking with my siblings when Tsubomi got a text from Momo-chan with a link to a livestream. We watched it all together, and I have to say, I have a lot of questions.”

The heat rushed to Shintaro’s face as he thought about Ayano watching his pathetic excuse of acting as a hero. “It’s nothing, really,” he said. “But ask away, I guess.”

“How did you find out it was him? And how did you plan all of this out? And wait, why was Fujimura-san there? Why did she agree to help you? And—”

“Okay, okay, let’s go one by one,” said Shintaro, quickly cutting her off before she drowned him with questions. “I needed to know what exactly happened to you, so I thought I would start an investigation. I went around asking club presidents whether their club was practicing on the rooftop around the time you were there, and eventually, one of them told me that Fujimura was there at the time I was asking about.

“So then, I had to seek her out and ask if she knew anything, to which she eventually told me that she was there and witnessed everything. I tutored her siblings in exchange for this information, but that’s not the point. But yeah, I decided that just having her as a witness isn’t enough; I need to hear that bastard admit his crimes myself. So I devised a plan to make him fess up, and I guess that worked, and now we’re here.”

“I can’t believe you did all of that for me, Shintaro,” said Ayano, smiling to herself. “Thank you.”

God, she’s so cute; this is so unfair. “It’s nothing,” he said, looking away. “I just did whatever I could. I’m glad it worked out.”

“I have to thank Fujimura-san, too,” said Ayano. “I’ll have to do that once I return to school.”

“What do the doctors say?”

“They said I’m doing fine. I can probably leave the hospital today, actually.”

“That’s a relief,” said Shintaro, letting out a breath. “I’m sure the gang will put together some sort of celebration.”

“I can’t wait,” said Ayano, laughing. “But also, I heard Shuuya said some super mean things to you a few days ago! I already scolded him earlier. I know he’s already apologized, but still! That was really not so nice of him! I hope you can forgive him, Shintaro; he’s a good kid, and I don’t know what got into him.”

“He’s right, though,” said Shintaro, closing his eyes as he recalled Kano’s words. “I know I never acted like I cared about you, and for that, I’m more than regretful. I’ve always thought that I should’ve been better, but for some reason, I’ve just never been able to change my ways. I’m sorry; In reality, I’ve never cared for anyone else in the way I care about you. You have all the reason to hate me for what I’ve done, but I still want to tell you—” 

“Shintaro…”

Gathering up his courage, he stared into her eyes. He never thought he’d ever have the courage to do this, but in this very moment, he wanted to open up to her, to tell her the secret he’d been holding back for months. He couldn’t afford to lose her again, so he’ll tell her, loud and proud…

“Ayano, I love you. Will you be my girlfriend?”

She stared at him in surprise as her cheeks flushed red — was it a yes? Or was it a no? Shintaro never knew his heart could beat this fast, but it was all her fault that he was feeling these emotions he never thought he’d experience. 

Her tears of joy were her response, a transparent answer as clear as the summer sky.