Take this ache away from my heart.

It was…dull.

I watched the trees outside through my partially-opened eyes. They were swaying in the wind, gentle dance movements that were as if trying to lull me to sleep. I had been blissfully distracted. Even if the people around me were in a hustle piling out of the room, I disregarded them. My awareness had probably turned nil. I wasn't even aware that the last bell had long rung.

"Zero, aren't you going home?"

Her voice filtered into my ears like a sweet, soft melody. I wondered if they would sound nice if she sang them out instead. Blended with the steady rhythmic pattering of the raindrops, it would probably sound almost melancholic. I'd most probably cry.

My eyes remained shut. I pretended I was asleep. She pretended that she didn't know. Because really, this kind of pretense had grown old on her. Sometimes, I felt sick doing it myself.

"…Tonight, you can come for dinner if you want. Father has been wanting to see you."

After she said that, she was gone. I didn't know how long it took for her footsteps to fade in my hearing. I didn't bother to count. It was pointless, anyway.

My eyelids fluttered open, and I soaked in the wet scenery outside, again. It was much more calming. Much more calming to be in contact with nature. Human's contact made my inside chaotic. No, I wasn't contradicting with myself. I'm a human, too. But unlike others, I found human contact to be a scary thing. They were hazardous, potential of tearing the life out of my body if I got too close to them.

I had learned that once. And I didn't wish to experience it another time.

Sometimes, I found it terribly sickening how it would haunt me. Because every time when it did, I would find myself frantically crawling to the toilet bowl, leveraging myself with all the will I had and vomited out the contents of my stomach pathetically. The aftereffects would churn my stomach horribly, making me feel disgusted as I flushed them away. The empty vessel of mine would crawl back to the room and lie itself on the floor like a mechanical machine, oblivious to the things that were in sight, to the slight noise that would ricocheted in the creaky walls once in a while.

I had felt like dying every time.

The rain was getting heavier outside, and I could even predict how fast the wind was blowing from the way the leaves were rustling madly outside, some being blown into the sky. The sun had long been hidden by the solemn clouds, and the field outside didn't look as brilliant as it would be like when it was full of people shouting about as they played.

Just now, she had thrown out such a desperate offer that I had to suppress myself from laughing. It wasn't sarcasm, but it was of dry amusement. It felt as if she was trying to find a way to get me to come, even as far as dragging her father into this… I hated that old man. I wouldn't go any closer to him even if what she had said was true. He was too loud, too jovial and it pained my eyes to see him moving so excitedly about in my sight. There was too much life, it made my insides lurched with an unfamiliarity.

Yuuki had known me since small. She had been close to me, but that was such a long time ago. She was adopted, but she didn't complain about her misfortune. It was probably why I hated that about her. It always kept me wondering if she could still smile if she was to be put into my shoes. If she could, then I would probably laugh at myself for having such a weak heart despite the tough shell people thought I embodied.

Ah, I was useless…Useless in every sense.

I closed my eyes while silently bearing the blames that were emblazoning word by word on my consciousness. It made sleeping hurt, but I managed.

When I woke up, it was already dark outside. The trees I saw earlier had already been swallowed into the darkness. I was not afraid however. I was already too used to this emptiness. My lips lifted into a wry smile as my inner voice reawakened to bombard me with their blunt truth. As I listened to them, I thought I had an inkling as to why it tore my heart with such a wound.

You didn't do anything wrong.

Your brother meant the world to you.

It is only human instinct to protect what is important to them.

But you don't understand. I never did protect him. He lived painfully even till the very end. Say what you want. You're just bluffing using all those pretty words, anyway.

You shield him from pain every night, didn't you?

You took his tears away till he slept.

Have you forgotten all those memories?

Shut up. You know nothing. Those memories meant nothing if he's already dead. I didn't save him, and that is the fact that kept reminding myself to never forget.

You're sinking yourself into guilt.

This isn't what he wants for you.

As the voice echoed in my mind, I hurriedly stuffed all the books into my bag. Before it could let out yet another stream of bluffs, I held my hands over my ears and stormed out of the classroom. I ran so hard that all I could hear was the rapid sound of my breathing and the dull thudding of my heart against my chest. The footsteps that splashed into the puddle of water on the asphalt helped to drown the remnants of those foreign voice that had clouded my mind a few while ago. I felt relieved to have it disappear, even for just a moment.

In actuality, I didn't know where I was heading to. My mind was blank. It was only through familiarity that my own feet moved according to routine, on autopilot as they led me to the bus stop a few meters away. My labored breathing sounded loud when I reached there, and I struggled to mask the fact that I was conflicting with myself.

There was another person who was waiting there. That person had been staring at me ever since I arrived. I struggled yet again to calm down my breathing. My hand flew up to cover my mouth. Still, my chest was heaving so hard that it would be a lie if I said no one would notice. It was pointless, but I still tried.

It had been a few hours since school was over. The bus that would arrive in just a few more minutes was the last one. If I had been asleep for an extra minute longer, I would probably be spending my night in the school. But the idea wasn't so bad. I could hide from the school guard's torchlight and slept under the teacher's desk unnoticed. It was much more appealing actually, having to dispose myself of the sight of those white walls that cornered me each night in my own house. That bare white walls which had made such an impression on me when I had drank in their ugliness on that crimson night a month ago. Those walls which were stained with blood, with the blood that leaked out from his torn body, were a constant nightmare to me. In the middle of each fitful sleep I went through, there would be a moment where when I opened my eyes, I could see the blood slowly spilling down the walls in a complicated, intricate pattern.

And his face would come to live in my eyes for the rest of the night.

I lurched forward due to an invisible force that had seemed to surge from within.

Unfamiliar hands reached out to me. I looked up fearfully and saw that it was that person. That person who tried to penetrate past the glasses in my eyes with their amber eyes. I had said that I was scared of anything akin to human contact, but this one, I feared even more-

"Don't touch me." I bit out harshly. The roaring of engine chose that moment to made itself audible amidst the patters of rain on the pavements. I realized it was the bus. The bus had arrived and was opening its warmth to invite me inside. I swatted the stranger's hands away from my view and proceeded inside.

I took the seat that didn't give me the sight of that bus stop. The bus remained immobile for a few more seconds before the door made a definitive closing sound.

I realized that that person didn't board the bus as the bus started moving. Inertia brought my body forward but I persisted on looking back at the sight of that person still standing at the bus stop. The body wasn't moving the slightest. It remained still surrounded by the falling raindrops as their hands brought themselves upward in a slow motion, gathering the crystalline droplets.

It printed a sorrowful picture.

The knocks on the door was awfully persistent. From the non-too-gentle rapping of hers, I could sense that she was angry.

"You idiot! How long are you going to stay cooped up by yourself in there? All night, all day, looking like a lifeless person-"

"At least if you're going to stay like that, let someone- no, let me in and held you! You're alone, stupid! You need someone! I know you, you need someone to listen to you more than anything right now!"

The abuse on my door had stopped. My lashes fluttered open slowly. It was getting tiring, I thought.

I was tired having to hear someone stealing everything that was kept in my heart. I wished that she could just leave me alone.

"Zero!" Her voice was so painfully desperate that I could even hear the tears at the edges. She was crying. Oh, strong Yuuki is crying. She who I had always thought as the strongest among the two of us was crying.

She doesn't want you to bear the guilt alone.

You yourself understand that.

Of course I would understand. She is Yuuki. The only person who would never leave me alone despite how I tried to push her away. At this point, she was slowly growing to become a hindrance to me.

Then I heard her wail on the other side…It was clear and sad. Even the barrier between us couldn't separate those emotions from being conveyed to me. I had tried hard to avoid that. But she always managed to make my effort crumble right in front of me.

Something lurched inside me. I watched the wall knowingly, and almost had an urge to scratch my nails all over the walls. But I didn't because my stomach felt terribly sick. The only way I could get rid of that was to rush myself to the sink and vomit. When I looked back up, my brother was there.

In the mirror, looking at me straight in the eyes.

People told us we were a splitting image of one, the two sides of a coin. The only way they can differentiate us was through our demeanor. Ichiru was gentler and kinder. Yet, he never asked me to change the way I am. I was stubborn, unattractive and spiteful to people's eyes. He told me he loved that about me. I loved the way I am because he loved me that way.

Inside the mirror, it seemed like a happy place. Because in there, he was smiling. How beautiful this reflection the image captured. I would've loved to keep them as a memento in the photo album. We hadn't had much photo of ourselves in the past, and the pictures of him that I had in my hands, were just enough to keep me from not forgetting his face.

My mouth moved, wordlessly saying something to the image in the mirror. My inner voice that had became conscious once again was trying to restrain me.

No.

"Zero!"

Yuuki. But I barely heard her anymore as I was gradually swept away by the current of my sweet trance.

I trailed a finger on his face, and he smiled even wider. Ah, I…I-

Then suddenly, he was crying. There was no more smiles, no more joy in his eyes. I was overwhelmed with my own sadness.

His face twisted into something ugly. And before I could continue watching further, my fist flew up to crash into the mirror itself. The image shattered into pieces of fallen glass. The fragile crystalline sound of glass dropping was beautiful at that moment. But he was broken in front of me, broken beyond repair, and that was terrifyingly ugly.

I knelt onto the floor and screamed.

"Ze-Zero! Zero!"

Fading. Everything was fading in my sight. Everything had slowly become distorted, and I couldn't comprehend whatever that was happening around me anymore. My shaking fingers reached for a jagged piece of glass, only to have their skin bleed as the sharp tip grazed deep inside the flesh.

The blood flowed in a straight line on the wet floor.

I screamed again. My tongue tasted the distinct saltiness of heavy sorrow. It was poison, and because of it, my system had undeniably switched off from any function available.

In just that mere instant, I witnessed how my whole world went collapsing down.