I helplessly curled myself into a fetal position in the corner and cry like I have never before. What is causing me such pain, I do not know. My world seems like it crumbling as I take in every breath. Time means nothing to me because I feel there is no need to hope for tomorrow as I have fallen deeper into despair.

The sun brightens the large spacious room. It is almost noon. I wake up and can't help but to shiver from recollecting my vivid dream. I rarely dream and when I do, it is never a pleasant dream. To make matter worse, my dream always come true. Why is it that I only see despair in the future? Does the future not contain a single glimpse of hope? Everyday I wake up without a meaning. I can see my future even without those stupid dreams of mine as my mother has already planned everything for me. Every step that I had taken has been carefully sketched out whether it is what I eat, what I wear, what I study etc.

I drive myself to school. I see people walking to and about, trying to work hard as if it will make a difference in the world. Here at Eitoku Academy, I can find my three other friends who are the fews in this world that can understand how I feel, or at least see what I can see.

In the cafeteria, the three guys are already there as I had expected. Rui, Soujirou, and Akira. What I have not expected is to see is a girl fall flat on her face next to Soujirou's extended leg. On the floor are the remainings of her lunch. She slowly picks herself up and look at her scattered lunch box. Her eyes wide looking unbelievingly at her "lunch". Those are probably the widest that I have seen people's eyes can go.

The girl turns to Soujirou and yells, "What kind of normal human being would extend their leg out to the walk way to trip people?"

Soujirou is speechless. In fact everyone in the room, including me is speechless. I guess never in his life did Soujirou expect to be yelled at by a girl. He is always so full of himself. He is always certain that any female would fall head over heels for him with just one glance.

"I didn't mean…" Sourjirou didn't get to finish his sentence.

"Apologize," the girl demands.

Coming back to my senses, I realized this girl has gone way over the line. I step in to teach the girl a lesson.

"You! Apologize or you will regret this," I say as I study her from head to toe. She is probably the liveliest person I have ever seen. Though her small body may look fragile, but I can see that she is tough inside. She is just like many others who think they can make tomorrow a better place to be. Soon, she will suffer just like I do everyday.

Perhaps she understands she will not get any apologies from any of us, so she left, but not before she purposely knock over the glass of water on the table, spilling it all over Soujirou's shirt and pants. She is probably the rudest person I have ever seen. No one has ever treated any of us the way this girl has. I am enraged to see this, but I can't help but to feel a little amused.

I walk over to the table where Soujirou is trying his best to wipe away the water stain on his clothes.

"You look like you have pee on yourself," Akira says as he lets out his laughter.

"It's funny isn't it?" Soujirou asks as he knocks over Akira's glass of water, letting it spill onto his clothes. "See, now we truly are buddies. We share the same misfortune."

"Geez…thanks bro," Akira replies.

Many times I look at both Akira and Soujirou and wonder why they can be so joyous when they both see the pain and sadness in this world. Like me, Soujirou can see the future, while Akira and Rui can see the past. This power that we have has been passed on from generations to generations. This is one of the reasons why our father or our grandfather only marries women within our four families. They don't want to spread the blood around, the blood that gives us this power. I don't know if this is a gift or a curse. My family sees it as a gift as our power has benefited generations of my family to make the right business decisions. However, knowing the future is not necessarily the best thing as I often see the cruelness of the world. People who tries very hard to change their life, but they don't know all their effort is going to waste. It would have been better for them if they have never tried. As for me, since I know my future, there is also no reason to try.

Akira and Soujirou resolve their sad life by fooling around with different women, drowning themselves in momentary pleasure to forget the responsibility that they have with their power. Conversely, Rui resort to closing himself up. He used to be more socialized. However, as he grew older, he sees more of others' pain in the past. Whether it is physical pain for emotionally pain, he can feel it as if he is a part of that person. As for me, I find comfort when others can feel the pain that I feel, or at least suffer the way I think they should. I don't want to be alone in this living hell. I want others to understand.