Chapter 1. Examination.

"Yes, yes, Sou-chan, perfect! Initiative! A helping hand! Thank you!" Kio exclaimed heartily, arms thrown in the air in dramatic gratitude to the heavens. I felt myself smirk - my interest in the junior art classes my confidante taught as an intern had always been minimal, and the brats' collective 'art' exhibition had an increasingly adverse effect. It wasn't my fault he'd lain the folder of student records squarely on top of the mail.

"No such luck, Kio," I dismissed gently, teeth gritting as I thumbed through bill after bill, decidedly moved a letter signed 'Minami Ritsu' to the 'Throw-Away-Without-Opening' pile, and sulked over the lack of welcomed personal post.

I sensed a nearing, piercing-obsessed storm. "Sou-chan! All the things I've done for you! The sacrifices I've made for you! The cigarettes I've lit for you! Please. There's two drafts of the guest list somewhere in that folder, if you could just... write down the final one, excluding all the names that are crossed out... I... I will love you forever!"

I smiled. "What a bargain."

"So you'll do it?" he excitedly pleaded, eyes gleaming with puppy-dog hope.

Caving, I nodded and picked up the folder. It wasn't like I had anything better to do. "Sure, it sounds easy enough." As promised, two sloppily annotated lists of names strayed in the mess of papers and photographs the folder contained, as well as juvenile sketches of strawberries, birds, and flowers, the most dramatic of which had been credited to 'Hawatari Yuiko', whose handwriting was laced by the same ecstasy. Having leisurely gone through a small portfolio of barely discernible, smiling, pink-and-green kittens, I turned my undivided attention to the glossy surfaces of the photographs hidden underneath. The first depicted a scarily grinning pair of young boys; one with mint-green hair, the other with radiant Tyrian purple waves. This couple also featured quite predominantly in the pictures thereafter, often in the act of mixing the wrong colours, or making faces at the camera. Another starring role had been taken by a bespectacled boy of roughly the same age, whose black hair and ears were tipped by off-white. "Hey, Kio, how old are these kids?" I called, not really interested, still going through the (to be frank, ridiculously large amount of) pictures. "Ranging from twelve to sixteen, I think," he answered, "Why?"

My voice had taken a momentary leave of absence, and warm blood poured into my cheeks. I blinked down at the photograph I held, on which had been captured a creature of bone-chilling, trouser-tightening magnificence. His hair, which would scientifically be noted as black, had caught the best of the sun's rays, and shone a deep shade of indigo - a colour so brilliant it was matched only by the large eyes that hid underneath the fringe. A beige plaster had been stuck onto his alabaster cheek, which, rather than deriving from, somehow served to enhance the accumulative beauty of his face. And he was smiling at the camera. Perfect little white teeth (Milk teeth, some? My stomach churned in awkward guilt) gleamed between pretty lips, upper and bottom incisors half a centimeter apart, as though he were in the midst of speech.

Disturbed abruptly from my awe-stricken reverie by a loud, repeated 'Why, Sou-chan?', I blinked away the rosy haze my vision had undergone. "No reason - who is h- who are they?" I asked, including the pink-haired, pig-tailed girl to keep from arousing unwanted suspicion.

Arousing unwanted suspicion? I was going quickly mad under the influence of a single picture.

"Hawatari Yuiko - the girl who's done most of the sketches in there, and Aoyagi Ritsuka," he answered upon having glanced carelessly at the photograph.

"And... uh, Aoyagi Ristuka (my stomach gave another jolt at saying his name alone, and I felt my brain cells sizzle to a rapid death), is he in your class as well?" I asked, flipping quickly through the rest of the photographs, "I mean, he's only in one picture."

Kio nodded, "Yep, he's in the class - he's in so few of the pictures because he tends to be the one taking them. Oh - did you make sure to not write down his parents on the guest list? They both cancelled, he'll be coming with Yuiko-san."

The guest list. Right. I hurriedly finished it off (to my embarrassment, mouthing 'Aoyagi Ritsuka' to myself), and got up, scooting the closed folder with the final guest list on top of it, over the counter toward Kio. "Here. All done. I'm, uh, gonna take a nap. When's the exhibition again?" He looked on the verge of explosion. "Sou-chan! It's in three days! Have you forgotten? You better come, you promised - if you planned something else for that day, I will personally ensure that yo--" "Don't worry. I'll definitely be there." Definitely.

I dragged my feet into my bedroom, hands buried deep into my pockets, fingertips smoothing over the glossy corner of the photograph I'd shoved into one. My whole being was alight.

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Laying back on my bed, pillows propped up against the low headboard, I held the picture up and held my breath, studying him intently. I folded away the smiling girl, Yuiko, and stared at Ritsuka's smiling mouth, shining eyes. "Ritsuka." The name sent a shiver down my spine. I said it again. "Ritsuka." And again, but quietly. "...Ritsuka." The boy in the picture smiled, and smiled, and smiled. The blood seared through my veins.

I knew it was stupid. He was, at most, sixteen. What was I expecting, a philosophical discussion regarding Rembrandt's favoured techniques? I knew it was stupid. It was so stupid, and I was insane. But I kept the picture. And a picture like that, on which purple eyes shone with mad desperation, you kept for one reason.

I lowered my hand to my fly, palm nudging my own blatant arousal. "Ritsuka."