Makoto doesn't remember much of his life before coming here.
He'd been an actor out there, and had been since he was a child.
It had been a way earn scraps of attention and admiration from his parents at first and later a more stable and dependable stream from the rest of the world.
That wasn't where he had really had his heart though. He can't remember where he'd really had his heart.
Even trying just makes his memories of everything else slip away all the more, as if that precious forgotten place has vanished into a sinkhole and all attempts to approach it risk sending the surrounding memories tumbling in as well.
The closest he can get to it is the memory of his last free moment tumbling down a flight of stairs in front of a hilltop shrine, shock and betrayal overwhelming him.
Despite what the dead kid in his dream had told him the man in the kitsune mask is no kinder than before.
"You've been quieter lately," the man in the kitsune mask says one day as he brings Makoto his twice daily bowl of disgusting stew. "Can I take this to mean that you've accepted your new purpose?"
"Of course not," Makoto says. "There's just no point in talking to you when you're clearly never going to listen to me."
"Well, you should stop whining so much about insignificant things," The man in the kitsune mask says. "If anything you should be grateful that I given you the chance to devote your fleeting, futile life to that which is eternal and transcendent. There is no greater honor left in this world for we who are doomed to die."
Oh boy, it looks like his captor is having real crazy person hours again.
Makoto hates when he gets like this not in the least because, even though he knows they're nothing but the ravings of a sick and troubled mind, the man in the kitsune mask's ominous statements scare the shit out of him .
"I don't want this stupid honor and I don't care about your transcendent thing. If you really wanted my gratitude then you'd let me go and get help instead of forcing me to play along with your stupid delusions."
Something hot and wet splashes across Makoto's chest. "Oh dear. How clumsy of me," the man in the kitsune mask says, as he straightens up, bringing the now empty soup bowl to his chest.
"I thought that you didn't care if I believed you?" Makoto asked.
"I don't. But I've had a long day and I'm in no mood to be called stupid or delusional," the man in the kitsune mask says. "If you can't be grateful for the honor of your position at least be grateful that I need you alive to fill it."
Makoto would be significantly more grateful if alive meant healthy. He's started to feel weak and vaguely tired no matter how much he sleeps and a pallor has fallen over his beautiful face.
It's clear that his captor is taking more from him than he can safely give.
*
The next day at school Touma approaches Miss Teruhashi in order to return her phone and more importantly retrieve his own.
The transaction goes smoothly enough but Miss Teruhashi seems somewhat awkward around him in a way that she had not been even when she was trying to convince him that she hadn't murdered her brother.
"You seem rather uncomfortable Miss Teruhashi. If some aspect of my conduct is troubling you please do not hesitate to inform me so that I can attempt to refrain from such behavior while interacting with you." He normally would not even consider such an offer but Miss Teruhashi is someone who's worth putting a little extra effort to remain on good terms with. Not to mention that he feels that he owes her a certain level of consideration after learning what was clearly quite a painful secret of hers against her will .
"It's not that. Not really," Miss Teruhashi says casting her gaze to the side in a way that suggests that she does in fact have certain complaints, most likely relating to his excessive loquaciousness. She then straightens up and says, "Do you like me?"
"Of course I like you Miss Teruhashi," Touma says. "I don't know why you'd be at all concerned that I wouldn't. You are a wonderful and kind person and I do not in the slightest hold any unfortunate fate that your brother may have met against you."
Miss Teruhashi gives him a puzzled stare for a moment before clarifying, "Thank you, but that's not the quite the kind of like I was asking about."
"Oh, I see! You meant romantically," Touma says. "In that case, my answer at this current point would have to answer, not really. While I doubt that I would object were our relationship were to someday develop in that direction, we hardly know each other well enough for such feelings to begin to blossom between us."
"I see," Teruhashi says, visibly more at ease in the light of this new information.
*
The Jet Black Wings is well acquainted with the feeling of being watched. Ever since he discovered that he could be the Jet Black Wings instead of boring old Shun he's often felt as though he's performing in front of an invisible audience.
Usually it doesn't really bother him. If anything it had helped him feel a little less alone during those dull, difficult months between when his upperclasmen, Calcifer Raiden, had left The Jet Black Wings to fight against the forces of the Dark Reunion alone and when his new right-hand man, Aren, had transfered in.
However, when he'd opted to leave Akechi's company, opting to eat his lunch in the bathroom instead, the quality of that strange sourceless gaze had shifted profoundly from its usual rapt fascination to a disappointed glare unpleasantly reminiscent of the one his mom gives him whenever he brings home a bad grade.
Except worse because unlike with his mother there had been nowhere to hide from the glare of that unseen observer, leaving him with no choice but to wither under it until it naturally dissipated hours later.
Whatever is watching him clearly wants him to be friends with Akechi and the Jet Black Wings is unsure how trustworthy an ally his strange new classmate is. He can't forget how gleefully Akechi had recounted how his former bullies had gone mad as though it was his own doing.
And now Shun's stuck working on this group project with him which means that like him or not, trust him or not the Jet Black Wings will need to work with his strange and sinister classmate quite a bit in the foreseeable future.
Still, when Akechi chases him down in the halls that morning to proclaim that he's found a subject for them to interview the Jet Black Wings can only take it as a boon.
"Who is it?" he asks, though frankly almost anyone would be preferable to the prospect of interviewing his father about his career cover job in international marketing.
"You may find this difficult to believe, but Saiki Kuusuke lives in this very town and I have been fortunate enough to obtain an opportunity to secure an interview with him."
"Ah yes, Saiki Kuusuke," Shun says, nodding sagely as he tries desperately to remember who that name refers to and why Akechi could be so excited to interview him. "Our classmates are sure to be impressed that we found such a well-known and recognizable figure to interview."
Akechi gives Shun a soul piercing look and says, "You don't know who I'm talking about, do you?"
"Of course I do," Shun lies. "What kind of uncultured swine hasn't heard of Saiki Kuusuke?"
"It's not entirely surprising if you haven't. He's a remake private person and has never made any efforts to seek out public attention. It's admirably humble really especially considering the far reaching implications of his discoveries. If I had managed to contribute even a quarter of what he has to the worlds of science and technology I wouldn't shut up about it, belive me."
The Shun uncharitably thinks that Akechi never shuts up about anything and asks,"So what exactly did this Saiki Kuusuke achieve?"
"Well most notably he invented the nuclear fusion technology driving our rapidly progressing energy transition most likely saving us from what would almost certainly be a much more protracted and painful one in future as our dependence on fossil fuels ran up against the unfortunate realities of carbon dioxide's role in anthropogenic climate change," Akechi lectures. "Additionally he is currently conducting some quite groundbreaking research into space travel at Tokyo University. While I would prefer to remain on earth myself, I cannot deny that it would be exciting for we as a species to no longer be confined to our planet of origin."
That's much more impressive than Shun had expected actually.
"Do you really think we'll be able to get an interview with him?" Shun asks.
"I believe that it's feasible enough to be a possibility worth pursuing. You'd be surprised how many people are perfectly willing to talk with you if only you ask," Akechi asserts.
"Well if it doesn't work out, we can always interview my Dad," Shun says. As uninteresting as international marketing is, he'll gladly take the opportunity to be the grade saving hero should his project partner's ambitious plans fall through.
*
Kokomi stands in front of the mirror a pair of scissors clutched in one hand.
Her parents aren't happy with her performance at the audition last night (or rather Akechi's performance but she's not about to try to explain that to them) and she's had to weather a series of increasingly angry texts from her father as well as an interminable lecture of a phonecall about how he knows that she threw it and how if she didn't want to go she should have just told him instead of making him lose face with his colleagues by making them all think that he'd only recommended that they audition her out of nepotism. He'd even given the phone to her mother so she could sadly tell Kokomi that she knows that Makoto's disappearance has been hard on her but she doesn't know what possessed Kokomi to act up like that when she'd always been such a good daughter.
It's true. She had been. And then she'd killed their only son. She doesn't know what got into her either.
What had being a good daughter had gotten her?
Dozens of pictures of her in Makoto's scrapbook most of which she'd never known that he was taking. And then later his lips on her lips, his tongue in her mouth his body his body to close to hers until she pushed him away and became someone who could only pretend to still be a good daughter.
It just doesn't seem fair.
Kokomi runs the fingers of her free hand through her hair, remembering the white streaks her brother's fingers had traced into the photos in his scrapbook doubtless pretending to do the same.
Even though she'd just washed her hair, it feels strangely dirty.
Kokomi gathers a bundle in her free hand, raises her scissors and cuts.
The slicing sound and the soft touch of her hair falling slack against her wrist snaps her out of the almost trance-like state that had made this seem like a remotely good idea.
What is she even doing?
People will talk. They'll wonder if she got dumped or something. Those jealous muckrakers at the school papers might even publish an article about it in that rag of theirs. Her reputation had somehow survived mostly unscathed through two days of Akechi being her, why is she jeopardizing it herself?
Still it's not like she can uncut her hair, nor does she want to. The length of her hair is something she can afford to change while still remaining true to her duty of bringing joy to the masses as the perfect pretty girl or at least a convincing enough imitation of the real thing.
The truth is Kokomi is tired of trying to be the person that she was before she killed her brother, but she's afraid that there's nothing worth looking at, nothing worth loving left beneath her facade of perfection. Just a selfish little murderess trying to run from the consequences of what she's done.
Let her dance the same steps that she always has. Let that be her prison and her punishment. And let her be grateful for the chance.
Community service is an awfully light sentence for murder after all.
