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For all he whined and fussed and woe-is-me'd about it, Junpei didn't really actually care that much about Valentine's Day. Hell, he'd made out better this year than he had since he could remember. A couple of the middle-aged ladies who were regulars at the market he'd been part-timing at for the past few weeks were sweet enough to give him a little something (and so what if it was chocolate they'd picked up in the aisle on the way to the register and that he'd checked out for them, that still totally counted). Yuka-tan had even taken pity on him and given him something, although she'd been very specific that this was pity chocolate, and he was under no circumstances allowed to see it as anything else. He told her it was cool, he didn't really think of her as a girl anyway, and she'd hit him on the shoulder with a magazine, and all and all, it wasn't a bad day.
He watched the last streams of the day's light fizzle out into the buildings and the ocean behind them through his window as he lay on his dorm bed, nibbling idly at crappy convenience store chocolate. The days were starting to get longer again, and it was weird to think that it'd be spring again soon. This whole damn year seemed to have gone by so fast that he barely remembered it. At least, he didn't remember doing anything worthwhile, but that could've been any year. Soon it'd be spring, soon he'd be a senior, and then he'd probably blink and it would be this time again next year. Waxy, grainy chocolate stuck to the roof of his mouth like that thought kept sticking in the back of his mind.
Just one stupid year, and he'd probably be sitting on this same bed again, eating bad chocolate and getting ready to graduate in a few weeks and supposedly knowing what to do with the rest of his life. Junpei laughed a little at himself as he wadded up the empty packaging from the chocolate and tossed it at the wastebasket. "He shoots... and he misses!" He sighed and put his feet up on the wall as he chewed on his thumbnail. College was probably--no, come on now, who was he kidding, definitely--out of the question, unless he magically started doing good on his exams (which, considering that he'd studied a grand total of about one hour for the upcoming ones, wasn't likely), or they opened up a new special academy for the helplessly mediocre, and stranger things had happened, sure.... No, he'd probably end up in one of the factories around here, or maybe construction, or maybe they could stuff him into a uniform and he could start taking tickets and yelling at teenagers at the train station. Then in five stupid years, he could be just like his old man, and....
Junpei sat up, put his feet on the floor. Maybe studying a little more wasn't the worst idea. ...After he got a soda. He needed sugar and caffiene to feed his brain, and man, that was some crappy chocolate.
Out in the second floor lounge, Akihiko-senpai, the only senior guy in the dorm, was sitting at one of the tables. He had his nose buried in a book, and was messing around a little with a loose thread on one of his gloves. He didn't even look up when Junpei passed through, or blink at the clunk-clunk-clang of the vending machine. No surprise, really. Guy like him had much bigger and better things to worry about than a guy like Junpei. Junpei stood in front of the machines and drank his whole can of Mad Bull, the candy-sweet soda rinsing the chocolate off his teeth as it shriveled up his tonsils and made his pancreas throb. Good stuff. Junpei watched Akihiko-senpai turn the pages in his book three times in the time it took him to chug a soda. Quick reader, too, huh? Junpei tossed the empty can in the trash bin and went back to his room.
Studying, studying, right, he was going to study. Or at least see how many pages he could turn. He decided to go for English, since that was his worst subject. He was really only good at remembering dirty words and phrases that could be used to hit on girls. Where the hell did he even leave the textbook? He gave his backpack a shake or two, risked his life by opening his closet a crack, and then spied it on his top bookshelf (weird, he thought, that he'd actually put a book on the bookshelf), gathering dust with a bunch of his other required reading. He let out a deep sigh and reached up for it, lamenting the things he had to do to guarantee his future.
When he reached for the textbook, his finger caught on the slim spine of the book next to it, and pulled it halfway out, so it ended up jutting out from the shelf. Junpei tilted his head a little to look at the cover and saw the word 'sketchbook', under the name of whatever company made business putting binding on blank pages. "What the hell?" he said to the empty room, and got the feeling he should just tilt it back up in place, get his English book and just study like a good boy. Probably just something leftover from whatever dude had lived in this room last year. It wasn't like he messed with the stuff on this shelf often, it was entirely likely he could have just missed it. For nearly an entire year, sure.
He took the sketchbook off the shelf. No dust on it, and no name written anywhere on the outside. That sort of thing was usually on the inside cover, he guessed, and cracked the book open. Nope, no name, but on the first page... Junpei's knees gave out under him, and he sat down hard on his bed. It was him. The drawing on the first page, right there in pencils that smudged a little under his thumb when he touched them, was his face. Absolutely, no doubt about it, perfect to the last detail--hell, maybe even a little better than the real thing--Junpei Iori. His hands were shaking as he flipped through the other pages, finding more half-sketches of him mixed in with the pages filled with heavy shading and abstract images that looked like they might be things with wings. No name anywhere, none of them signed, and was that--Junpei double checked his fingers to see if he'd smudged chocolate on the paper. No, it was blood that was smudged against the edge of the pages, old and dried brown.
This was too much, this was some serious horror movie shit. Any minute now he was going to start hearing the laughter of little girls and bloody handprints were going to show up on his mirror or something. But when he flipped back to that first page, that picture of him, he didn't feel scared. His hands were shaking, but it was hurt he felt, somewhere in his chest, spreading out like he'd been shot--like he knew what that even felt like. No, it was deeper than that, worse. He brushed his fingers over the part he'd smudged, trying to fix it, and the burning in his heart felt like something he could almost remember, like something he'd seen in his dreams once...
A wet splat landed on the paper, darkening a line that made up the edge of his portrait's throat. He was crying, what the hell? Junpei stood up as fast as the water in his legs would let him and closed the book. He shoved it under his mattress and staggered to his sink to splash water in his face. He kept his eyes away from the mirror, for some reason not wanting to see himself looking back at him again. He had the worst feeling he wouldn't see what he was expecting.
To hell with studying. He needed some air, he needed to do whatever was the opposite of thinking. It wasn't too late for him to catch the evening show at Screen Shot if he hurried, watch some stupid shit, maybe with explosions or boobs or something...
It was nearly midnight by the time he'd gotten back, and by then, he'd forgotten what it was that'd sent him out in such a rush. He pulled his English book off the shelf and put it on his desk to serve as a haunting reminder that he'd have to study eventually. He was in bed and passed out asleep by half-past twelve. He didn't remember his dreams come morning.