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The same lighter that had lit countless of Dojima's cigarettes had burnt the only thing linking Adachi to Nanako's- and for that manner, everyone else's fate. The hand that wielded unto it this perversion of it's intended use was Yu Narukami's. Adachi sits in Dojima’s house and gloats to himself about it.
When Yu Narukami comes back to Inaba, he can feel everyone's eyes burning into his skin. Chie's always bracing for something, Kanji won't even meet his gaze and Yosuke's grin is laced with detestation but they still sit in the Junes court and talk about what had happened in the time he was gone. They don't mention the TV or the murders because they no longer need to- Yu's known the answer and the others cannot bring themselves to. This newfound social faux-pas brings them closer together. Staying silent makes their conversations trail on and on about nothing.
-”How's the big city?” Teddie's clothes had been collecting dust in Yosuke's closet for a year.
-“Inaba's so boring without you around.” Everyone else left town for one reason or another. Avoiding failure. Yu Narukami had mostly made peace with this. He didn't know how to do anything else.
After an awkward hour of trying to catch up, the four of them part ways. The sky is the colour of a TV tuned to dead air.
In front of the elevator, Yu spots Adachi. Or perhaps Adachi spots Yu? Both of them try to look away. They plant themselves to the right of the exit, right by the window. They stand in silence and pretend they're strangers. One of them coughs into his hand. The other exchanges a look. Nothing else happens.
On his way home, Yu Narukami thinks about why did it. Why he burnt that letter. Why, Why, Why. He doesn't have an answer for himself. But that satisfies him as answer enough. This was the truth he chose, and now he'll never have to face that one of ”his own” betrayed him. At home, Dojima stares at him with half-lidded suspicion. Only Nanako smiles, jumps at him, and pretends nothing's his fault.
-”Uncle, did mom say I had to stay the entire summer?”
-”Why? Is something wrong?”
-”I just need to know.”
-”No, I don't think she said anything about it.”
The end.
The end the end the end the end the
On his second day in Inaba, Yu Narukami stays home in his room. Nanako brings him tea. They sit and talk. She leaves. The end.
On his third day in Inaba, Yu Narukami stays home in his room. Nanako brings him tea. They sit and talk. She leaves. The end.
On his fourth day in Inaba, Yu Narukami stays home in his room. Yosuke tries asking him to help out at Junes. He cannot let himself decline, so he gives him a half-hearted ”maybe” and hangs up. Nanako brings him tea. They sit in silence. She leaves. The end.
On his fifth day in Inaba, Yu Narukami stays home in his room. At dinner, Adachi helps bring Dojima home. He carries him leaned over his shoulders and it brings to mind the image of Yamano and Konishi in that same position. Both of them are shadowy outlines around him, limbs hanging, twisted together, mouths agape and eyes glossed over.
This time around they chat quietly, passing around condiments and comments and everything one could pass along. Dojima lies on the couch beside them. Even in his sleep, his brow furrows and twists under Yu's gaze. He doesn't even try looking at Adachi- who's been taking every chance to stare at him with that shit-eating-grin. It filled him with nausea now. The smile he saw in the interrogation room was a secret between only the two of them. Nanako acts as a partition in the room. She giggles at every joke the two of them say and idly celebrates that she doesn't have to eat alone tonight. Together they sip their tea and the atmosphere dies a slow death in Yu's hands. The end.
The end the end the end the
Days pass like trains back home. Time seems to do nothing but stand in Yu Narukami's way.
The end the end the end
He fades away into the fog slowly.
The end
Yosuke calls again. Chie visits but she doesn't stay long. When he watches her leave through his window, she stops and turns back. The silhouette she leaves against the sun stares back like a tiger's eye. It blazes with resentment and leaves only when he turns from the window and pretends to go downstairs. The end.
The doomsday clock rings with a tune suspiciously close to Yu's ringtone. It's Adachi. For once, he has no way to avoid going out. Nanako's happy to see him out of his room, and Dojima doesn't ask anything about where he's going for fear of dissuading him. They wave goodbye and his legs turn to stone to save him – but the path he chose was a gun pointed at his back.
Adachi's apartment is cold and lit with bright white LEDs that tint it all blue. It all brought him back to that interrogation room and he felt once more that same compulsive urge to save him. It died down easier this time.
He finds himself making fried... something. After a while, he stopped asking what was in Adachi's fridge. Any leftover could be warmed and fried. Adachi didn't mind- all food is flavourless in a mouth that doesn't deserve it. Either way the hand that feeds it is bitten.
- ”So, what are you doing in your room all day?”
- ”Studying. For my entrance exams.”
- ”Come on, leave that goody-goody shit for Dojima. What are you really doing?”
- ”Nothing.”
- ”Guff, seriously? You're such a bore.”
- ”...”
- ”I know exactly what'll get your spirits up.”
The two of them discuss something after that. A new murder, he assumed, but who's? Chie's, or Yosuke's, or Dojima's- he didn't know. What's it to him? Now that they all suspect him, now that he's Adachi's partner, subhuman, what's it to him?
The end?
When does it end? This summer? He sinks into his bed. The sheets swallow him whole. He wonders if it feels the same lying under soil. The end.
Days spin into weeks and he cannot not remember when and how he agreed to meet Yosuke. But here they are, standing in the Junes TV aisle. Yosuke slouches to stare at the ground and avoid facing Yu. He mutters and mumbles, pleads with him to just explain himself, promises that he won't tell anyone and Yu nods like he understands. He stares at him- pushes his eyebrows together and raises the corners of his lips. This attempt at courtesy goes ignored.
-”I'm really worried about you, dude.”
About what, about what, about what? He traces the outline of Yosuke against the TV within his mind's eye. He reaches out, his hands searching for a way towards him, towards a loss of balance and a toppling- and god, didn't Teddie's letter say that he'd returned to his own world, wouldn't he be overjoyed to see Yosuke again, wouldn't he, wouldn't he? Yu wraps his arm around him and it fills him with a vague sort of disgust when Yosuke doesn't try to fight it. He lets go shortly after. They go home together. A fog-quilted blanket covers them.
Yu Narukami spends the entire saturday before summer vacation ends sitting at the train station and waiting for his train. When he asks Dojima to leave early, he promises he'll use the time to say goodbye to everyone. Both of them know he's lying. Nanako clings to him and grabs at his shirt and begs him to stay but he ruffles her hair and promises he'll be back next year too. Adachi calls to say goodbye with the cadence of a prison warden bidding you good luck on release. Says he's just about to be transferred back out into the big city.
He boards the train alone and finds his seat. The window is too foggy to see through, but something gives him the sense he'd rather not look. Across him is a small TV- one that could barely fit his head. As he stares at it, the TV flickers. Yu flickers back.