The sun was setting, and Seto knew he'd stayed too long again. The trip through the forest took hours, and though he always promised himself he'd leave on time, it never ended up happening. He stopped in the pathway between the trees to wave goodbye to her, still feeling the burn of a blush across his cheeks
Mary waved back at him from the little cottage, smiling. He wondered if he was losing his mind.
He wasn't stupid. He was fourteen and he knew that boys liked girls (and that some boys liked boys, and some girls liked girls.) He knew that Kano liked Kido and that Ayano liked some boy at school that didn't smile nearly as often as she'd like. But he'd known Mary longer than he'd known all that, since he was a kid and she was a teenager, and now they were both teenagers and it was really very upsetting and confusing. He thought that if she could maybe stop hugging him for a little bit so he could figure it out it would be nice, but on the other hand he didn't want her to stop hugging him at all.
Seto forced himself not to think about it. It was a long walk back, but he had other things to worry about, like the fact that he hadn't finished his summer homework yet. He laughed to himself, a little guiltily. He had no idea why he'd thought he'd get more done with Mary than with Kano and Kido.
Sooner than he'd thought, Seto arrived back at the red-brick house that the Tateyama family lived in. All the lights were off, which was odd; usually at least someone was home at this point of the night. He'd have to use the key under the flowerpot to get in, but first he tried the doorknob by reflex, and was startled when it was unlocked.
The hallway was dark, but there was a flicker of light coming from the main room. Seto fought the urge that something was wrong, and flicked on the light as he went, calling out, "I'm home!"
Upon entering the room however, he was confronted with a strange sight. Kido and Kano were seated on the couch, his head on her shoulder and her cheek resting against his hair. Kido was asleep, and her eyes and nose were red like she had a cold. Seto hesitated in the doorway, and Kano looked up and saw him.
Any joke or cheerful greeting that Seto had been about to make died in his throat. Kano had dark circles like bruises around his eyes, and his mouth curled in a shape that couldn't be called a smile when he saw Seto standing there.
"Where were you," he asked, his voice rough. They both seemed like they were sick, and Seto wondered why. And where were Kenjirou and Ayano?
Seto faked a grin, the room's atmosphere making him uneasy. "In the forest like usual. What's up?"
The nonchalant answer only seemed to push Kano further, and he flinched back against the couch, shaking Kido by accident. She began to wake up, looking around with bleary eyes.
"Hey, Kido," Seto said, hoping she'd be a little more reasonable than Kano.
She blinked at him, drawing her arms around herself for warmth, although she moved away from Kano almost instinctively.
"Seto," she said slowly, watching him, "Ayano's in the hospital."
Seto's heart dropped into his stomach, and he must have heard her wrong. That couldn't be right.
"What?" he asked, suddenly breathless.
Kido opened her mouth to repeat herself, but Kano was already speaking over her, jumping to his feet. Something about the way that Kido had phrased it enraged him, and it showed in the way he was glaring at her.
"She's dead," he spat, "her body's at the hospital, if that's what you mean—"
"You think I don't know that?" Kido said, her voice a kind of desperate almost-scream, and she whirled to face him, her eyes were swimming with tears.
"Guys—" Seto tried to say, but a strangled whisper was all that came out.
Kano was taunting her, a cruel smile on his face. "If you knew, then why were you lying to him—"
He barely got the words out when Kido punched him across the mouth. He fell back against the couch and covered his head with his arms, cowering against the cushions. Kido hit him again.
Seto's mouth felt dry. "Guys, stop," he whimpered, but Kido was raising her fist again and Kano was mocking her, and although Seto couldn't make out the words Kido clearly could because her eyes narrowed and the tears in her eyes started falling.
He didn't know how he made it across the room but Seto caught her arm, desperate. "Stop it," he begged. His vision was hazy with tears, but when Kido looked at him he could see her shock and betrayal. He usually took her side.
While they were staring at each other, Kano weaseled his way out from under her and slipped towards the door. "I'm going to bed," he mumbled, and he wiped at his nose as he left. There was blood on his face, but Seto thought he saw tears too.
Kido ripped her arm from Seto's grip and rubbed her knuckles, struggling to stop crying. Seto felt a pang of guilt. They'd been upset before, but they hadn't started fighting until he walked in.
"What happened?" he sniffed, grinding the heels of his palms into his eyes.
"She— they think she fell," Kido managed, not making eye contact.
Seto remembered that she'd had summer school today. He remembered her leaving early that morning as he was packing his notebooks and pencils into his backpack, getting ready to go to the forest. She'd smiled at him. She couldn't be dead.
Something inside his chest snapped in half and before he knew what was happening, hot tears were pouring down his face. He buried his face in Kido's shoulder. He didn't feel bad for getting her shirt wet, or for walking in on her and Kano, or for how loud his sobs were. There wasn't room for any of that in his mind. All that there was space for was the fact that Ayano was gone, and she wasn't coming back.
…
The next morning, Seto woke up with a pinched headache, the kind caused by crying himself to sleep. He was lying on the couch on the couch, and he was still wearing his shoes. Mindful of the fact that he'd probably be scolded for that, he sat up and started unlacing his sneakers, looking around. Someone had put a quilt over him while he slept. There was a white jacket over the back of a chair by the door, and an abandoned mug of coffee on the seat, so it seemed likely that Kenjirou had come home some time late last night.
In fact, when he kicked off his shoes and then went to go put them by the door, where they should have been all along, he saw Kenjirou sitting at the kitchen table, staring blankly at a newspaper that was spread out before him. His eyes weren't moving.
Seto thought about leaving him alone and just going back to sleep, but the ache in his chest had started again, and it was impossible to ignore. He entered the kitchen warily.
He didn't look up as he walked in, and Seto didn't want to disturb him, so he padded past him and looked into the fridge. Nothing in it looked appetizing. A bruised tomato was oozing juice onto the shelf, and the sight made his stomach turn. He shut the door.
The noise startled Kenjirou, who looked up. "You're awake," he said hoarsely, and Seto nodded.
"Sorry I got back so late," he mumbled, though there was no way he was getting a lecture now. They stared at each other for several seconds, neither one wanting to be the one to bring her up. Then Kenjirou sighed and smoothed the paper against the table. "Call Shuuya and Tsubomi. I need to talk to you."
Seto very much did not want to deal with either of them right now, but he yelled their names up the stairs and soon the three of them were sitting around the other end of the table. Kano looked like he'd never slept better. There was a smile on his face, and no sign of the beating Kido had given him the night before. Seto didn't have the heart to dig any deeper. Kido looked a mess, her hair knotted and tangled and her eyes still puffy from crying. Seto was suddenly self conscious of how messy he must look, having hiked through the woods and then cried himself to sleep.
Neither of the two would look at him.
Kenjirou watched the three of them for several seconds. He'd probably been mulling over what to say for hours, but there was no kind way to say it.
He dragged in a deep breath. "They think she jumped."
There was a crash, and everyone stared at Kido, who was on her feet. She'd knocked her chair over, but she didn't move to pick it up. Her shoulders trembled with rage. "That's impossible."
Seto had to agree, twisting his hands in his lap as he watched her glare at their foster father. Ayano was fascinated by life, and she loved it. She loved them. There was no way.
Kenjirou regarded her with the calm stare of someone who was too tired to care about anything anymore. "There's security camera footage."
He wondered how he knew. Had he watched it? Would the police do that to a grieving father? Make him watch his daughter kill herself? Seto felt his stomach lurch. Would they have to watch it?
Kano was still smiling, drawing idle shapes on the table with his finger. It was as if he hadn't heard Kenjirou speak at all. He must have spent all night mustering his defenses.
"That's wrong," Kido was repeating, backing away. "That's wrong, she wouldn't—"
With another long, tired sigh, Kenjirou got to his feet. "I am going to the school. I have paperwork to do. My students— it hasn't been a good week."
Seto didn't know how he could be so calm. He felt like if he stood up, if he left this chair, he would fly into a thousand pieces so tiny that no one would ever find them. He gripped the edge of the table, his knuckles going white.
"I don't want any of you to leave the house while I'm gone." Seto watched numbly as he left the room, grabbing his jacket. The door slammed shut, and then there was silence.
Kido was breathing heavily, and she hadn't sat back down. After several seconds, she turned on her heel and left the room. Seto watched her go, and wondered if he should follow her. After all, they weren't supposed to leave the house, and he didn't know where she was going. But the idea that it might be his job to take care of Kido was so foreign and bizarre that he stayed frozen in his seat until long after she left.
"Did you hear that," Kano said absently, and Seto glanced back at him, "no sneaking off to the woods to play with your imaginary friends."
Visiting Mary had been the furthest thing from Seto's mind, but he still frowned. "She's not imaginary," he protested weakly, not really caring.
"Oh, I get it," Kano said, his voice careless. He nodded, and kept writing nonsense on the table with his fingertip. "It's a real person in the forest that's more important to you than your own sister. That makes it okay."
Anger flared through Seto like a gunshot. Usually he just brushed off Kano's teasing, but with everything going on, it hit too close to home. "She's not more important, it's just summer so I was—"
Kano wasn't done. "If you weren't gone all the time, if you weren't too chicken to use your ability, maybe we'd have known—" he was looking Seto straight in the eye now, and his smile flickered and wavered, like he was having a hard time maintaining it.
"This isn't my fault!" Seto replied wildly, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. A tiny part of him suggested that this was Kano's way of grieving, and he shouldn't take it personally, but he was too hurt to care.
"You're pathetic," Kano said, and he sounded like he had a cold. If Seto didn't know better he'd say his voice had been thick with tears. The smaller boy scrambled out of his chair and hurried from the room, a cough like a sob shaking his frame as he left.
…
The next few days dragged on like a horrible dream. Kenjirou was rarely home; apparently there was a police investigation going on at the school, and he'd been pulled in to participate. Kano was home less and less, and Seto found himself clinging to Kido almost as much as he had when they were children.
It was as much for her as for him; Kido had looked up more to Ayano than any of them, and though she'd always been stern and sullen with strangers, she was starting to treat the three of them that way too, and Seto was worried about her. He tried to support her, setting himself up on the floor of her bedroom with the remnants of his summer homework, but she generally ignored him.
School grew nearer, and Seto had never found himself dreading it so much before. On the night before, he was helping Kido get their uniforms ready, and he asked her if she was as worried about it as he was.
"School's not that bad," she said quietly, handing him his shirt, and he fumbled to fold it.
"I just won't know what to tell people," he mumbled, struggling to get the sleeves creased correctly, and she looked up at him, her gaze piercing.
"We tell them nothing," she ordered, and he found a little bit of comfort in the fact that despite everything, they were still a 'we'. "The police will figure out that they were wrong, and there's no point in saying anything till they do." She held up her skirt, frowning. They'd all grown over the summer, but the hemline was still within regulation. Seto would need new pants soon, though.
They folded Kano's uniform too and left it at the food of his bed. Seto had taken to sleeping in Ayano's bed, in what had once been she and Kido's room. Kenjirou had mumbled something about boys and girls not sleeping together, going through the vague motions of being a good parent, but he hadn't really done anything about it. Seto wasn't sure if he was avoiding Kano or if Kano was avoiding him, but it seemed to be working either way.
"I'll see you in the morning," Kido told him as she rolled over to fall asleep, and Seto didn't mention that he'd probably see her sooner, when one of them woke up in the middle of the night screaming from a nightmare.
…
Kano joined them in getting ready that morning, and Seto saw Kido's shoulders sag with relief. He knew she was worried about him, even though she kept him at arm's length like always. They left the house and locked it behind them, since Kenjirou had already left for work.
They walked down the street, Seto and Kido in step together and Kano several feet in front of them. Seto blinked in confusion when Kano took a left.
"You're going the wrong way," he said before he could stop himself. Kano stopped in his tracks, and his shoulders shook like he was laughing.
"I'm taking a shortcut," he said, and Seto didn't need any sort of superpower to know it was a blatant lie. Then the smaller boy hoisted himself over a fence and into someone's lawn, and he was out of sight.
Kido and Seto exchanged glances, but they didn't go after him.
…
School was just as prickly and unpleasant as Seto had imagined it would be. Ayano's name hadn't be released to the media, but everyone was talking about the girl who had thrown herself off the high school. He wasn't in the same class as Kido this year, so he had no idea how she was coping. He hoped it was better than him.
Some of his classmates asked him about Kano's absence as well. Even though Kano was in the other class too, he was fairly popular, and everyone knew the three of them walked home together.
"He's, um, he's sick," Seto mumbled, staring down at his desk and hunching his shoulders. He didn't know what else to tell them.
Though none of the students knew that it was his sister who had died, his homeroom teacher had obviously been informed, because she didn't call on him once the entire class, and he could feel her watching him with sympathy while he struggled not to hear the girls gossiping.
"Why would someone jump off the school?" he heard one of them whisper.
"Maybe her boyfriend broke up with her," another one giggled, and Seto wanted to scream at them that they were wrong, that Kido was right, that Ayano was fine and this was all just a giant mistake.
"You know what I heard," a third girl said, in a tone of voice that made the others lean closer to hear what she had to say, "I heard when she jumped she was wearing a white scarf, and by the time the police got there it was red with her blood."
It was just an old wives' tale in the making. They didn't mean any harm. But Seto clapped his hands over his mouth, his stomach twisting, and he was going to throw up right here in class and he'd never hear the end of it—
Somehow, he made it to the bathroom. As he gasped and clutched at the sink, struggling to fight back tears, he tried to remember if anyone had said anything, if the teacher had tried to stop him as he'd run, but it was all a blur of terror. He wished Kido was in his class, but then he didn't wish hearing that on her either. He gave himself a few more moments, knowing soon he'd have to return to the classroom and explain where he'd gone.
…
Kano came back that night around midnight. Seto heard the door to his old bedroom open and shut. He glanced over at Kido, but she was fast asleep and hadn't heard it.
Seto thought about pretending that he hadn't heard it either, but he couldn't sleep, so he might as well. Crawling out of bed, Seto wandered into the other room. Kano was lying on his bed, still wearing his school uniform, though it was scuffed and torn in several places. Seto had surprised him; as he cleared his throat, announcing himself, Kano jerked and looked up, and the rips faded away, as did several small cuts and bruises on his face and arms. He grinned.
"Here to claim your old bed? Too bad, I've liked using it to store my stuff." It was a bluff of course; Seto's bed was empty and neatly made. But that had sounded almost friendly, and Seto drifted over to sit on the edge of the abandoned bed.
"You didn't go to school at all today?" he said. It wasn't really a question. Kido had mentioned that she hadn't seen Kano at all, and the girls asking Seto had confirmed it.
Kano rolled over onto his side to face him, propping his head on one hand. "What's that? Now it's important to stick around? My, make up your mind."
Seto didn't know why he'd thought Kano would have forgiven him. He stood up, and the other boy watched him go, not moving an inch until he'd shut the door.
He bumped into Kido in the hallway. She'd been on her way back from the bathroom, probably, and they didn't speak until they were in her room.
"Kano hates me," he said, miserable. Kido shook her head.
"He hates himself," she corrected, and though that was so much harder to deal with, Seto knew she was right.
…
The days passed painfully. On weekends, Seto found himself at a loss for what to do. He considered going back to Mary's house, but then he remembered the curl of Kano's lips as he'd said 'imaginary' and found he couldn't do it. He felt bad for not telling her goodbye, or at least what had happened, but then he felt guilty for even thinking about her in the first place.
Was Kano right? Could he have known about what Ayano was planning? There was no denying that he'd been spending more and more time at her house, and that even when he was home, he'd been thinking about her too much. He hated that he'd been so selfish.
Finally, he decided he wasn't going to go back. Mary was a nice girl, and he liked her— he'd liked her, he corrected himself— but Kido needed him here, and if Kano ended up needing him, he wanted to be nearby. He thought this with determination, pressing his fist into his palm like a stamp.
Somehow, the decision made the time passing even worse. Without visiting her on weekends to look forward to— and really, what had he done before he'd met her— the weeks blurred together into an unidentifiable mess of nightmares and classwork.
It was when he and Kido were walking home that he saw the flyer.
"Look, they need a part-timer at the florists'," he said, for lack of anything better to talk about, and reached out to take it from the streetlight it was taped to.
She looked at the paper over his shoulder, a thing which had gotten a little harder to do lately. "Are you going for it?"
He folded the paper up and tucked it safely into his pocket. "I'll check it out, at least."
…
More days passed and Seto was failing three of his classes, but when he went to go apply for the job he was accepted on the spot. "We need more boys with shoulders like yours," said his new boss, a gruff man who at least seemed to be gentle with the flowers. Seto realized with a bit of a shock that he was tall. Maybe that's why none of his clothes had fight right lately.
He spent his first paycheck on pants that actually covered his ankles and gave his second to Kenjirou, who looked him in the eye for what was probably the first time since that summer day when everything fell apart.
"What's this?" he asked, turning it over in his hands. Seto thought it was pretty self explanatory, but he hunched his shoulders a little, self conscious.
"I got a job," he said, and wondered if he was in trouble.
"You're a good kid," Kenjirou said absently, walking away with the paper, and Seto figured that was a compliment. At least he'd taken it.
…
Kido was helping him with his homework one evening, and he still wasn't getting it. Everything seemed impossible lately, and the characters swam under his eyes. She jabbed her finger at one of the problems, as if poking it would shuffle the words and make them make sense to him. Then Kano walked into the room, and the both of them immediately sat up straight.
"Relax," he snorted, "I'm just getting a snack." He walked behind Kido's chair and she leaned forward, and there was a habitual distance between the two of them. Seto felt sick at how wrong it was.
"You should study with us," he asked, and Kano snorted again, grabbing some packaged cookies from the pantry. But then, shockingly, he didn't leave the room. He sat down at the table with them, ripping open the packaging. "Alright, catch me up," he said, propping his cheek on his hand, and the idea of catching Kano up on the weeks of school he'd missed was so absurd that Seto almost laughed.
"It's a little late for putting in effort now," Kido murmured, and Seto could feel how much she was restraining himself, how much she was holding herself in. Was it for his sake? He remembered how upset he'd been when they'd fought the night Ayano died, but now he wished they would fight again like old times. It would be better than this.
Kano stayed with them for almost an hour, and he even leaned over to point out errors in his homework, and Seto felt a little bit of hope. At least he was talking to them.
"Maybe I'll come in tomorrow, for a laugh," Kano yawned, stretching, and they stared. "What? Playing hooky gets boring."
Seto felt like laughing in relief, or maybe crying. That night when he and Kido were trying to fall asleep and he was carefully stacking Ayano's multicolored hair pins that she had kept on her bedside table and he hadn't had the heart to move, he asked her, "do you think he's gonna be okay?"
Kido did laugh then, a wild laugh that hardly dared to hope. "Him? He'll be fine. He always is."
Seto shut his eyes in relief. At least she thought so too.
…
Kano did come to school the next day, but he didn't go to class. He wandered off as Kido and Seto were changing shoes, and they looked at each other and shrugged. The fact that he'd come at all was progress. Then they separated to go to their own classes.
Seto's first class was math, and he hated it. He'd stopped paying much attention long ago, and he drew trees along the edge of his pages, turning the top of his notebook into some kind of forest. His boss had mentioned that the paper route near him was hiring, and was trying to figure out if he could do that and still manage to make it to school on time. Unfortunately, that required math too, and it brought him back to square one, which was that he didn't understand a thing going on right now.
He looked out the window. Their classroom looked out over the athletic field, where one of the other classes was running for PE. A familiar streak of green caught his attention and he leaned over to see better. He grinned when he saw it was Kido, leading the pack of her classmates around the track. No sign of Kano though, even though he should be in that class.
Kido crossed the finish line before anyone else, and stopped, panting, resting her hands on her knees. Then she looked up, and shaded her eyes with one hand. She couldn't possibly see him, right? With a glance towards the teacher, Seto raised his hand and waved.
She didn't react, staring up at the school for several long minutes. Then she broke into a run, and instead of rejoining her classmates, she dashed into the school. Seto blinked, confused. Then his phone vibrated. Seto unfolded it under his desk.
"He's on the roof."
Seto was out of the classroom before he knew what was going on, and he could hear the teacher shouting as he bolted for the stairwell, taking the stairs two at a time. He could hear Kido a few flights below him, her feet pounding on the steps. It seemed to take an eternity to reach the roof.
He wrestled with the door, having trouble getting it open, and Kido caught up with him. The two managed shove it open, and they staggered out onto the roof.
A small figure was dark against the sky, head angled back to look up. He was nowhere near the edge, but they tackled him anyway, Kido wrapping her arms around him and Seto with his arms around them both. They hit the ground with a thud.
"What the hell?" Kano sputtered, trying to shove them off, but they were having none of it.
"What were you doing?" Seto demanded, at the same time that Kido growled, "You're so stupid!"
The smaller boy stared at the pair of them before bursting into laughter. "Oh man! You were really worried, weren't you? Don't worry, I just wanted to see what it was like up here."
He didn't have to explain further. They knew what he meant. How often had Seto paused on an overpass, wondered how hurt he'd be if he'd fell? Had often had Kido leaned out a high-up window and tried not to think what Ayano had thought as she watched the ground sped towards her?
Kido's jaw tightened. "We don't know why she did it, but that doesn't mean you have to be an idiot about it." Seto looked at her in wonder. It was the first time she'd admitted that Ayano might have killed herself.
"I'm not being dumb, I was just curious. Shouldn't you both be in class?" Seto shrugged, and Kido looked away. Kano looked startled, glancing between the two of them. Then, though he struggled to hide it, his smiling face flickered like a candle, and he began to cry. Sobs ripped from his throat, and he tried to say something, the corners of his mouth straining upwards, but he couldn't smile, so he hid his head in his hands. The other two just squeezed him tighter. They'd been supporting each other for weeks, but Kano had never let them help him.
His body shook in their arms, and Seto patted his head awkwardly. Kido looked on the verge of tears herself, and Seto felt a burn in the back of his throat. They stayed on the roof for a very long time.
…
Kido sat crosslegged on her bed, writing on a small pad of paper. Seto and Kano were sitting on Ayano's bed across from her. Seto was playing with the hairclips again, trying to see how high of a tower he could make of them before they fell over. Kano was sprawled on his stomach, watching his efforts.
Suddenly, Kido pulled out one of her earbuds. "Hey," she said, and they looked up. "Let's get out of here." The other two looked at each other. "For good, I mean."
Kano rolled onto his back on Ayano's comforter, taking a deep breath. It didn't carry any of her scent anymore, not when Seto had slept here for maybe a month. "And go where?" he asked, spreading his arms wide.
"Anywhere," Kido said, not desperate but stubborn. It would be hard to talk her out of this.
Seto didn't want to. He paused, ready to put the top hair clip on the stack, and turned it over in his hands. The sunshine yellow plastic was bright between his fingers. "We could get an apartment," he suggested, "a really shitty one. I make enough."
Kano finally seemed interested, sitting up and looking at the two of them. "Tonight?"
Seto laughed nervously. Surely they'd need more time to plan than that? But Kido nodded, her face stern. "This weekend," she said, and there was an authority to her words, one that neither of them would question.
"I'm in," Seto said, returning the clip not to the nightstand but to his pocket.
"Me too," Kano said quickly, as if they'd leave him behind, but they never would.
…
Seto felt his way around the kitchen, trying not to wake either of his siblings as he tidied up from breakfast. He'd thought he'd succeeded, when a voice behind him spoke up.
"Where are you going?"
He whirled around, only to find Kano leaning against the doorway, watching him. Behind him Seto could see the recently unpacked cardboard boxes they'd stored their few belongings in. The place was kind of a mess.
"I thought you had today off," Kano continued, peering at him suspiciously. Seto shrugged.
"I do. I'm going for a walk in the forest." He paused, waiting for Kano to mock him, to challenge him. But the smaller boy almost seemed worried.
"Aren't you a little old for imaginary friends?" Kano teased.
"Yes, I am," Seto acknowledged, and turned to go. "Tell Leader I'll be back sometime tonight. Don't wait up."
As he let himself out, Kano shouted after him, "We'll be waiting!"
Seto smiled.