A new m, but not the same m anymore. A repeat would be wele, preferred over what became of m now. Fresh aurned soured like rotting eggs. It o be scrapped and pushed away into a far away er. Left out of sight preferably, disposed of or even ied. Anything that would excise the hint of the stain.

  Turmoil, tumultuous.

  Yuki stood pnted firmly ireet. A heavily drawn shadow cast over his face toned his smiling visage with dire highlights. Yet only those with the purview of his thoughts would find such superfluous details to be more than a break of the norm.

  While he waited, he kept adjusting his uniform. A palette of pale blues and whites paihe pid print pants. A curiously bold choice for uniform, but grounded by the more servative bck bzer. Matg blue stitches and lines penciled in the highlights of the bzer with the shared pid print found on the exposed part of the colr breaking the solid painted bck of the jacket. On the right breast pocket, the school logo, an embroidered triah mirrored shooting stars apanied by a Japanese maple tree beh.

  Around the er, he glimpsed his best friend, Saki and the stranger, Ayumi. The two versed as though long time close friends sharing everything freely. Should I tell her? Telling her would mean that I believe Ayumi’s tale… I don’t even have any proof. I’d look like an idiot.’ Silence, for now at least, he required further time to sider.

  If only it made sense.

  Saki stopped as she came up to Yuki. “Why are you waiting for us? Something wrong?”

  “What?! I wait for you two.”

  “No, you walk with your head in the clouds until we catch up.”

  “Only sometimes.” She stared at him waiting for him to correct his uatement. “Okay, most times I do. Hey, a good book is hard to ignore.”

  “And when you wait for us, you want something or you’re pissed about something you read.”

  “It’s not always books. Fine, yes it’s always books.”

  “n B?”

  He nodded in agreement, g the determination for anything else. “n B. It was a terrible story. I couldn't suspend my disbelief experieng it. I didn’t really get much sleep.”

  “You do know that not every book you find is going to be good. o lose sleep over it.”

  The duality of their versation made it hard to it fully to her stanbsp; All the while, he kept a er eye out to see what Ayumi did. She remained disengaged, likely waiting to see what he did. Knowing that he kept the pany of a killer gave him pause to any sort of a in front of her, regardless of her previous decrations. Even disbelieving the story, he did witness someone’s death. Which should have left him with a heavier burden if she had not dumped a metri of random refuse upon him.

  As the versation stalled out, Ayumi leaned in. “We probably should start heading to school.” Accepting nods agreed to carry the versation? Debate? Disagreement? One or all of the above things would be tinued as they walked.

  Chapter 4 - Blood Tinge

  Walking through the hallway, Yuki tio try to rationalize the finer points of daydreaming as a mental release of stresses that maintained his personal health. After a long walk to school only nodding pliance came out of Saki by this point.

  He stopped himself mid senteo step aside a cssmate. “M Yumi!” Roughly simir i with a shorter close haircut, a few long strains drawn back behind her ear, Yumi had a smaller frame pared to Saki, though against an athlete robably unfair to Yumi. Quiet with a traditional, yet slight modern vibe, she politely stepped out of his way as well with her two friends staring ily at Yuki’s overt friendliness.

  “Good…m Hayashi…” Her gaze darted towards him for a sed and then down and to the right.

  Watg the stares from her friends, Kaede and Katsumi, he kept moving uerred from his destination. Though as he went to look back to resume with Saki, his friend had a look for him as well, though different than the previous he just received. “What? I’m just being friendly.”

  “Not everyone’s so easy going with your openness like Hiroshi, especially with your history.”

  “Which being history, is in the past. So let’s just focus on the now.”

  “Yuki…I really wish you’d have a little more on sense.”

  “I don’t know, it seems pretty on to be friendly.”

  Kaede moved to physically pce herself between Yumi and Yuki. “Don’t worry about him, Yumi. It’s better if you stay away.” Bright eyed with a bob cut that curved into shape around her face, Kaede held a stern expression to defleything from Yuki that might get through.

  “All of the rumors from his past school,” cut in Katsumi, “Something about him doesn’t add up, like he’s a fake. I wouldn’t trust his kindness.”

  She was tilting a little between her friends and a little towards the half obscured Yuki. Darting her eyes around, she was searg for her words. “But…he helped me…” Her voice was trailing off into silence as the rest of her words turned into vapor.

  “Even if he did, we don’t know what he’s thinking. You know how people be.”

  Yumi froze up with bits of memory blinking in her mind. A soft slow nod came from her in agreement. She khat they weren’t wrong. Yet she looked around them still w if he was in the hall. She was too te.

  She was quiet. Sileuro weights tying her down. Left uo walk, she gave into her course. It was right. They were right. This was safe.

  Safe was best.

  Safe wasn’t what guided Yuki at the moment. He ignored his surroundings and transitioned into retelling Saki about a se from a ret book he finished. Painting a vivid image with his hands and arms, his voice definitely began to fight for trol of the general ambient noise in the . A few cssmates began to grow quiet as his dramatic reting tinued.

  Yuki only made it about two minutes further into the presentation before the css rep and teacher broke things up to restore order. A stern, familiar reprimand ter and he walked back to his desk with a few low chuckles. Not that affected Yuki in any manner.

  School tinued out normally without attacks from assassins, which was how things should be. It’d be pretty strange for that to be the norm. So normal was the everyday. No reason to think it should be anything else.

  Yet, somethi off.

  He never let on during css or the walk back with Saki and Ayumi. Waving off the two, he watched from the gate as they tinued on up the road. Ayumi shattered his pead upon refle, he never knew what she did after leaving him. What sort of life did she have? How much of what he thought he knew about could be real? Was any of it real? Where did the lies end?

  It mattered little how real her story was. The facts were that the girl in his memory and the ohat killed a man didn’t match up. Any way he tried to paint the story in his mind it didn’t fit into pieces. Every possible answer simply sounded like a book from his shelf.

  What was reality? Ayumi’s reality? His?

  Turning away finally, Yuki opehe gate. Anht awaited him as he attempted to ighe problem Ayumi. He didn’t evehe door open before Jun pushed it. “I’m home, Jun!” Yuki gave a little pat on his little brother’s head.

  In silence, Jun lit up with a warm glow in his eyes as he hopped baside. Yuki followed him in sooed by Ken as well. They tug together on his arms dragging him away even while attempting to take off his shoes. He mao maintain his manners in time, even if his shoes id half turned on their side.

  He couldn’t help smiling at their energy. Ken handed out a couple of the toy phat they were pying with before. Yuki sat down with Jun flying around the fighter pne given to him. It only took a few seds it seemed before Ken rushed ba with two more toys, a trud a car, running them over the wood floor.

  They pyed for a few minutes before a shout from the ste room wound around. “Yuki!” Momoko called, but it felt different. She had urgend pani her voibsp; He dropped the pne and stood up. An uneasy ing siess crept into his stomabsp; His mind pyed terrible sarios that doubled his heart rate

  Before he even mao take a step, everything suddenly ged to crimson. At first it looked like someoook dozens of paint buckets aied them over everything. The floor, walls, ceiling, couch eveoy pne he just held turned a dark unnecessary red hue. This impossible ge where the surfaces literally seemed to birth an endless font of crimson icor fshed an disturbingly familiar memory. ‘That sand guy…’

  “What’s this red water?!” excimed Ken g his hands against the surfabsp; It strangely didn’t stick to his hands when he pyed with it. Any spshing just dripped off him like the world's best liquid resistant material.

  Ahat didn’t seem to be the end of it. Just as Yuki started to adjust to the strange ing of reality, reality got more bizarre. Out of the walls, floor and even the couch came illustrations of nightmares and horror. He had seen simir imagery in his manga, but that didn’t prepare him for something that had real form and sound presenting a vivid painting of grotesque life.

  Half formed humanoid frames of bones, muscle and sinew transitiohrough any surfa his sight. Some had legs and a head, others arms and a chest, others were a fraein mix as if anatomy meant nothing. A mass of vaguely human limbs reached towards anything not like itself.

  Immediately, Yuki k dout his arms around Jun and Ken only to find half muscle covered arms reag out for them. With an unusual amount of agility, Yuki picked up both a oable and then coubsp; A quick skip and skip nded him up against the wall fag outside of their house. What little remained reizable as a house steady distorted into a pulsing mess of flesh all covered in thick blood.

  Sweat beading up in droplets on his temple. Fshes of yesterday threateo cuff him to the ground. Panid fear didn’t win though as his instincts to protect remained. ‘I’ve got to get them out of here. Somewhere safe…and Momo…’

  Tilting his head back towards the window, he remembered that the saually stopped. But this already presented a pletely different situation than before. ‘e on, where’s the end?’ Sing quickly, he pulled up his brothers closer. The property wall made it impossible for him to see outside, but crimson painted everything in sight.

  The few seds he spehe wall finally caught up to him. Creepy baby and gia reached out to pin him down. “Damn it! Sorry, dad, but I’ve got to do what’s important!” Yuki pulled free from the grab and sprio the end table. Spinning around swiftly, he kicked the mp off the table and at the window. Shattered immediately, he bounded for the opening pushing through the limbs ing up to hold him down.

  Uhe tra he expected, the blood didn’t slip and he came to a quid painful stop smag his back against the wall, in an attempt to keep Jun and Ken out of harm. “Shi…t…” He caught the fused stares of the two as they went through a whipsh of emotions, but empathetically figuring out the seriousness. “Are you two okay?”

  “Big bro…what’s going on?”

  “I don’t know, but I promise you that I’ll do anything to keep you safe.”

  “I wouldn’t start making promises,” echoed a slick deep male voice.

  “Yuki!”

  “Ken?!” Snapped back to his brother, he saw both disappeared. Yuki ed his head back to Ken’s voice seeing two limbs holding his little brother moving through the property wall away from his reabsp; He reactively took a step to save Ken, but looked the opposite dire to see Jun silently dragged away simirly. “Jun!” Yuki ground his teeth at the choice as seds wasted his efforts. “Bastard, e for me!”

  “In time, but the distraust be removed.”

  Staring into the darkness of his home, the unknown challenged him with the impossible choibsp; Indecision froze him. ‘Where are you Momo? I need help! I don’t know how to get out of this situation…’