Len was obsessed with Rin. He went crazy whenever she wasn't near him, speaking to him, or touching him. His nature had never been thought of as serious until a certain incident occurred. No one knows what Rin or Len are thinking or how they're feeling. And as each person begins a journey of their own through their memories, they find things that not even the police had been told.
Another collaboration.* (See author's notes below)
[Cover illustrated by Pixiv ID 5495992
Haku Yowane
The coffee was brewing in our private hotel room. That's another thing I remember quite clearly before the event.
It was on the top floor, and the other rooms were vacant and empty due to our manager's request.
I'd mixed the concoction so we could stay up, as we needed the right beverage to keep our train of thought moving. Our eyes were secured on papers, tackling our schedules and picking out which breaks would be best to spend some time together without travelling too far from our studios. We're good friends, after all. She has a kind nature, and I can't help but be grateful that we are.
I recall myself noticing there weren't anything to eat for breakfast the next morning, and I wasn't going to trouble the chefs downstairs to cook for us personally, so I informed Rin that I was going to be out for a while to get some groceries. She nodded happily, and then resumed reading. She told me to be safe.
I only quietly bid farewell, slipped on some shoes and went out the door. The last thing I saw was her tender smile as she looked at the proposal ring on her finger, unaware of what was to become of her while I was gone. When I was at the market, the tuna was on sale and I thought briefly of a young woman, only a couple years my senior, who loved that type of meat. Luka. Rin's friends were mine too because she introduced them all to me if I happened to be in the presence of one, and I liked that. She chose good friends.
But... I suppose, you can't choose who you're related to, can you?
The hospital's colors are so bleak and depressing. People come and go past me, none of whom I am acquainted with, off with their own problems. I'm sure they haven't an idea that something awful just happened. Sinful, even. It is bitter, the way I think this, but what am I to do? I am sitting outside Rin's assigned room, waiting for the nurse to come out and allow me to enter. I hope that Rin is okay.
When I came back, the hotel door was shut, of course. But a chill ran up my spine. Something just seemed wrong. Then I opened the door. "Rin, I'm back," was what I said, tentatively. The ivory curtains on the window weren't swept back, but the hallway provided enough light to chase away the darkness.
My eyes had roamed around the room, momentarily pausing on the bed and moving on, but then retreating back. Then the bag of grocery bags dropped onto the carpet and out of my limp fingers with a soft, barely audible thud. Panic rose inside me, but I didn't dare move. Fright just froze me. I felt my skin pale into a ghostly white as splinters of terror iced through.
The nurse comes out of the room, affords to give me a look of sympathy, and then says it's fine for me to go in now. I nod, surging out of my seat and thanking her politely. When she departs, I stare at the door as though it's an entrance to death. I don't want to see her, looking so broken. I don't want to see her sad face. I don't want to see her eyes brimming with betrayal, even if they aren't directed towards me. But then I remind to myself that Rin's inside and she needs me. A source of comfort, somehow, as the person she was supposed to trust more than anyone else in the world had caused this.
Defiled. Touched.
My hand wrenches the doorknob open, and I watch as the thin ray of light from the room I am in widens as though it's a folding fan. It reminds me so much of the incident that I almost close the door right there. But I don't. I swallow the golf ball down my throat. He's not here, Haku. He won't hurt Rin any more than he already has. Repeating those notices to myself silently, I finally make my way in.
The door shuts with a click, me standing against it and staring at the floor. Rin says nothing, either actually asleep or pretending and thinking. I close my eyes, clasping my hands together in a form of a prayer. I can't help but wonder why it had to be Rin.
The mattress had creaked in protest constantly, and despite that I could still hear my hammering heartbeat. Rin was there on the bed, underneath whoever was assaulting her. His hands had fought purchase into the white ruffled pillows, his ragged breathing matching with Rin's whose fingernails left crescent moons on his bare back. Her ring was gone. From the vantage view, I could spot dried tear-tracks on her face, her eyes squeezed shut. Her bangs clung to her forehead, her legs wound around his back forcibly. The faintest of red hand imprints prevailed on her thighs. They didn't notice my presence.
It occurred to me that the person had blond hair. No one else had blond hair with such a spitting resemblance to her that I knew of besides the young woman's twin brother. That is when it clicked. I felt my stomach lurch as the realization knocked into me like a load of bricks.
I had only watched in horror for a few seconds, when his motions slowed down. He had shuddered deeply and impelled back only one last, desperate time. He'd murmured, "RinRinRin..." to her neck. It was like a broken recorder before it faded away into inaudible whispers, words that I couldn't read by the lips nor hear by the ears, and then finally heavy pants.
Len.
An anguished scream had reverberated throughout the top floor of the hotel.
Client 01
Name: Neru A.
Gender: Female
Age: Nineteen years, seven months
Information: Long-term friend of Rin K., Neru was called at 4:49 A.M. in her apartment by a mutual friend of the victim, Haku Y. who was in Japan. Haku, on Rin's behalf, told her to come over. Neru is blunt, sometimes rambles off but cares for her friend. Neru describes the victim's brother generally protective, never wanting to leave Rin's side. She claims that the behavior started in middle school, peaking at an incident involving a childhood friend. She doesn't say much else, because she says she doesn't feel well enough to speak more.
A shrill ringing strikes my ears, shocking me out of a deep slumber. My heart bucks, panic shortening my breath as wide, partly blurry eyes flit around to find the source of the noise. My hands toss away the hot blanket off my legs, and I distinguish the vibrating cellphone on the nightstand with the caller ID and photo of the person provided on the luminous screen.
Haku. Calling from Japan, all the way across the globe. A call at this hour warns disheartening news. The fact that the frequency of her calls aren't so high must definitely mean something's gone horribly wrong, I think to myself.
Then the phone topples and clatters on the shiny hardwood floor of my bedroom, fleeing under the bed. It's disrupting enough to stir the kitten curled up on the foot of my mattress out of his slumber, instantly making him hiss and have a beeline for the door. I don't bother stopping him, even as he deposits gray fur on the way out, just cursing under my breath and and frustratedly slithering out from underneath my blankets. Plaid pajamas-clad behind in the air, I grope for the phone as my fingers rummage about beneath.
I feel something, definitely not the phone but an article of clothing. I pull it out anyway to squint at it in the dim light of the moon cast through my window without a single idea of what it could be.
A pair of yellow-lace panties. So that's where they went. I toss it to the left corner of my room carelessly, returning to my exposition by rolling off the bed and slamming onto the ground.
Pressing my left cheek to the cold floor, my hand chases away dust bunnies while I reach for my phone, still trilling louder than ever. Just barely feeling the hard plastic, I tease it into my awaiting grasp. Once it's recovered, I sigh in relief and press the green 'answer button', holding the device near my ear and cutting to the chase right away.
"Haku! What's the matter?" I demand urgently. "Did something happen?! Where's Rin?!"
Her quiet voice floats over the line, like she's straining not to squeak. "A-Ah, good morning, Neru. Are you doing well? I...I'm sorry if I woke you up or anything." I furrow my eyebrows, the realization slowly dawning on me that she just wanted a simple conversation. Or so it appears. If she does, then she could have called me later at least.
"Of course you did," I snarl into the phone, leaning back against the bed. Woke up for nothing after all. There's a crash somewhere in my kitchen, the rattle of pans and pots, then a mrow! I start to sit up a little to find what's the source of the noise, but then resume back to my previous position. It's probably just the little rascal from six paragraphs ago, stirring up trouble.
"No need to get snarky with me, Neru," she says exasperatedly, as though she's a mother scolding her child. "It is only, after all—" There's a pause as she no doubt consults her watch. "Oh. I'm sorry. I didn't realize it was only five A.M."
"Four," I correct, then continue, my words deliberately punctuated with a period, "Why are you calling me right now?" Can't quite keep the irritation out of my tone. Nobody likes being woke up at this time of the day. Especially if you were in a nice slumber, might I add. My eyes land on the mirror hanging on the wall, and I manage to make out dark circles encompassing my eyes. Well.
"I always forget about the time difference. I'm sorry." I roll my eyes, but smile slightly at her apologetic tone. You can't stay mad at Haku. She just seems so genuinely sorry about it that you feel all guilty for snapping at her in the first place. She really means no harm. But still? Waking me up at four in the morning? That's like a death wish.
"So nothing's wrong?" I ask, like I'm clarifying. I run my index finger under my eye, then pulling at the skin with the addition of my thumb to see if there's a bag. Seeing as it doesn't stretch so much, I relax with ease.
"Um... Well, actually..." Her voice trails off. I picture her twirling the cord of the phone with her finger.
"Then, call me back in a few hours, okay? Maybe... say, eleven o'clock?" I bargain, not intending to go any earlier than that. I've been working my butt off for the past week. Even if you work at Starbucks and it doesn't pay well, it's always bustling with business because of the coffee addicts. And this week, for whatever reason, more have been rushing in. I'm hardly ever surprised if people comment that I always smell of freshly-brewed cocoa beans. Not that I'm complaining. It's actually a good gig overall, and it just so happens that I like the scent.
"No!"
"Well then, Haku, what do you want me to do?"
There's a pause, and then I hear voices in the background. Is that Rin? Man. She sounds quieter than usual. I can't make out what they're even saying. I press my ear closer, hoping that somehow I'll be able to sneak in on their secret conversation. It's to no avail, because Haku disrupts my tactic by finally speaking to me before I can actually hear some of the exchange of words.
"Um... C-Can you come over and visit?" she requests meekly. "R-Rin and I miss you."
Miss me?
I've been friends with Rin elementary. One day, she fell in the sandbox at the school playground. She wasn't pushed. No, no. She was clumsy enough to fall in, so I took the liberty to help her up. I dusted off the sand from her clothes, extended a hand and introduced myself. And from that moment on, we were best friends. Sure, we're total opposites. She's gentle, I'm manipulative. She likes puppies, I like kittens. She doesn't speak her mind, while I can blurt out anything I'm thinking. I don't like holding back thoughts. If I do, it'll just gnaw at my mind and when I snap it's like a tsunami.
But the thing is, the reason I like her as a friend so much is because if you look at it in some way, we were sorta dependent on each other. I defended her if she ever needed it, even threatening whoever bothered her. If I ever was on the brink of getting myself in a fight, she'd drag me right out before I was sent to reform school. Our personalities are supposed to clash, but somehow it fits. For once in my life, I actually believed that opposites attracted.
In the gym locker room, I kicked off my black converses. When they landed on the floor, I bent down to pick them up, grimacing at how soggy they were from the mile run outside earlier. I hadn't scored very well as it turned out I wasn't much of a runner. Because of that, I was one of the last to finish. As I tossed the sneakers inside the compartment, it clanged against the gray metal, alarming Rin who was beside me sitting on the bench changing back to her normal clothes too.
Once she recovered, she went on ahead to scold me. "Don't throw them like that!"
"What difference does it make?" I quibbled, my voice muffled by my shirt's fabric as I pulled it on. "It's already loud in here anyways. Idiots yell to each other for perfume, slam locker doors shut, and nearly flood the bathroom running the water in the sinks." She squinted her eyes at me for a moment, her mouth opening to defend her side of the argument, but then her expression changed back to one of submission.
"Fine," she sighed. She stood up to put on her skirt. "I wish you'd be a little bit more gentle with your things, though."
I smiled at her, took out my hairbrush, beginning to comb my hair vigorously. "I take care of my phone just fine. How was the mile run in your class?" Despite having P.E. in the same period, it was to our unfortunate awareness that we did not share the same coach so we couldn't run alongside each other. She had the privilege of running inside (with air conditioning), because their coach was actually merciful, while I had to run outside with the dirt in all its muddy glory. The weather had also been rather moist, as it had recently rained.
"Tiring." Rin frowned, shimmying the white skirt up to her hips and adding, "Annoying. The boys won't leave me alone."
"Some of them are actually cute, you know," I informed lightly, setting down the brush into the locker and circling my hair into a side ponytail with a black bobble striped with yellow. Rin was kind-of-sort-of-maybe popular with the boys in the school. I don't blame them really. She's really cute. Plus, her personality is appealing. It was too bad she couldn't tell them off. It's not that she was afraid of their reaction if she rejected... Well, actually that was the case. She doesn't like hurting people's feelings. It's not in her blood or so she claimed. "Like... hmm... Leon. You like blonds, don't you?"
"Hush!" She shot me a playful pout. When finished with the task of putting her skirt on, she sat back down to wear her flats. Girly, girly. I put up with her pastel fashion taste anyway, regardless of how strange it looked with my black-and-yellow style. "He's not my type. And I'm not really interested in dating right now."
"Dude, we're in eighth grade. It's about time you get yourself a man," I declared decidedly. Tapping my finger on her nose, I told her, "Tell you what. I'll hook you up with Piko. You know, that really shy but extremely pretty boy in our next class? I think you two would make an excellent couple."
Rin winced. Either at the thought of Len being upset, or because of the way I phrased it. Rin, hooking up with Piko. Ha ha. "I don't think Len will like that. And you barely talk to Piko, on account of the fact you two sit so far away from each other." Right. Akita and Utatane. Our class seating arrangement was based on last names in alphabetical order. I sat way in the front, to my distaste, while Piko sat on the other side of the room. Still, it was worth a shot, wasn't it?
"Piko doesn't talk to anyone. Besides, what if you guys end up being married someday? Then you'll look back on this talk and laugh."
She blushed, to my triumph. "But what about Len?"
"Len doesn't like anyone who pays attention to you," I teased. "Piko will be a nice choice. He's so shy that he'll barely do anything that will anger Len. It took months for him to accept me. What's his deal again?"
"Nothing." She shrugged, closing her locker and hooking her black lock back on it. "He's always been like that. It's a twin thing, I guess."
I know there's some sort of myth-ish thing that tells us that twins are really close. But Rin and Len being really close? Biggest understatement of the century. Len's class wasn't too far from the locker room and he always waited outside so he could walk Rin off to her next class while I remained by her side silently. Silently, because Len was all "mine, mine, mine!" with Rin and I could barely join in on the conversation they have. He's so sweet, right?
Uh... no. They're intimately close like a Chinese finger trap. You know, Rin being the finger and Len being the trap that constricts her. I don't really get the whole concept of close twins, to be honest. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Like, you shared a womb with another kid and automatically you're close just like that.
I would get pretty sick of my twin, especially if they're smarter in academics. People will compare me to them all the freaking time. For instance, "Oh, look at Nero! He's so smart! What happened to you?" See, that is Rin's case. Well, halfway. Len does happen to be, well, technically more intelligent. School-wise. Her parents don't compare them, though. I think it's because her parents are really nice, which must be where Rin's good-natured traits were passed off from. My parents, however, can be very strict. I don't wash the dishes one night and immediately I bring shame to the family. It's not like I'm doing crack cocaine or anything, right? But hey, thank goodness I don't have a twin.
I shut my locker and slung my bookbag over my right shoulder. "My mom says your brother has a sister complex," I mentioned as we walked out of our section of the locker room. "You know, that 'disorder' where a brother has excessive love for his sibling to the point it gets past the sibling love thing? To the point it probably gets all steamy?" Her eyes widened in horror, her head turning to the side to look at me. Her mouth opened constantly, but shut each time because she might have been trying to hold back some insults. When we reached the exit, she finally responded. Err, protested rather.
"Len's not like that, though."
"I'm not like what?" Speak of the devil. Sure enough, Len was waiting. He was leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest in impatience. Because they're twins, they look pretty alike. I admit, he is attractive. Though, sometimes he has this intensity in his eyes that scares the crap out of me. So I refuse to make a move on him. That, and the thought of dating my best friend's twin brother is kind of weird.
"None of your business," I sang all cheerfully, letting the heavy doors close behind us. I linked arms with Rin, making her bristle in surprise. She was still sensitive to a touch, seeing as she'd never really interacted with much people before a certain blessing came along. In other words, yours truly. "So! To science, Princess Rin and the troll that lives under the bridge?"
"Right," he said flatly, pretending to ignore my little insult. I smirked back, unabashed by his tone. "Science." He stepped on over next to his sister, briefly darting his eyes over to Rin's attire before looking away again.
Rin nibbled on her lower lip, something she did when she sensed something was wrong. We'd walked in silence for a while until she broke the stalemate, just asking that.
"It's fine," he reassured, his tone abruptly sweet like honey. Still, his eyes said otherwise. She sent somewhat of a glare in my direction, since I was probably at fault for making him grumpy. I shrugged innocently, then proceeded to whip out my phone. Time to check Facebook while it's still safe. The principal allowed us to use our cellphones in the hallways but not in class, and the Internet back at home wasn't working. When I went on, though, I noticed the app was still logged in on Rin's account. I mischievously smiled. She forgot to log off. I was going to type up a status, something stupidly lame like "Neru was here, mwuaha c:" until my eyes caught sight of a friend request notification.
My interest sharpened.
Like the nosy person I was and am, I pressed on it to see who sent it. Some guy named Oliver. I would have immediately accepted it for Rin for the sake of her love life, but didn't.
"Hey, Rin," I called, looking up from the screen and handing her my phone. "You know anybody named Oliver something? Amber eyes. Blondie."
Her eyes brightened instantly in recognition. I could have sworn Len tensed up more than he already was. "Ollie!" Beaming, she stared at the glowing screen. "We were friends back when we were little. But I moved away..." I watched as she accepted the friend request, with Len looking over her shoulder to see. When she was finished, she logged off and returned the device back to me, her smile still existent. "I can't wait to talk to him. I wonder if he's still as nice." I pinched her waist, which made her yelp.
"Someone's got a crush~!"
"Do not!" she denied, swatting my arm with a free hand.
"Do too!" I insisted unrelentingly. Tucking the phone back into my pocket, I grinned. "You've got taste, Rin. I have to admit that. Hey, Len. Hear that? Rin here has a crush, and it isn't your sorry ass!"
"Neru, I don't like him like that...!"
To this day, I'm not sure if she was referring to Len or Oliver. At the time, I'd only laughed and continued to joke around. And now, I wonder to myself if I was the root of the incident.
"To love to the point of madness. And the need for the love to be returned to the point of corruption..."
Yet another collab because I don't know how to write out the next chapter of Beautiful Hangover, Tokioo's a lazy bum who didn't feel like writing anything by herself, both of us were fairly uninterested in writing the next chapter of Burst Your Bubble, at the moment, and we wanted an experiment. DON'T SHOOT, I'LL GO PEACEFULLY.
I pray that the scene in the beginning wasn't too graphic or didn't startled some readers. (She let me take over that certain "part" because she was embarrassed) But I personally plan to possibly censor the final chapter (Len's POV, mind you) and publish the uncensored version somewhere else, ha ha. Don't know where, but I'll find a place.
Okay, so here's how we plotted it out. We decided each chapter is in someone else's point of view, and their point of view will never be seen again. It's just a one time perception, you know? Several people are connected with one another, as they share the same memory but they just have a different, yeah, perception. Some, they mention other memories briefly. Believe it or not, the tiniest characters whose appearances are short could have a chapter too.
Len and Rin, of course, when their time comes it's expected that they'll have the longest chapter ever because they have all those memories. But you ain't seeing them now. Nope, not yet.
Review, please? (Also if you see any typos, do tell, thank you)
Hopefully, we won't update incredibly late. Because we all know that both of us are lazy.