A teenaged girl with long, teal-colored twin pigtails practically flew up the flights of stairs to a rather small apartment in the inexpensive part of town.
The apartment was on a higher level floor, and there was no elevator to make the trip easier, but by now, she was used to the stairs, and did not mind them a bit. A small plastic bag containing a few groceries was held in one of her pretty hands.
The apartment door was unlocked when she tried it, so she knew that someone was already inside. An energetic smile bloomed on her youthful face as she burst into the room, enthusiasm in her step. Expecting a joyful welcome back was the best part of her day. It didn't happen every day, because life was frequently busy. Days that she could bring food home to contribute to dinner was not something that happened every day, either.
"Kaito! I'm home!" Miku beamed as she looked around the small apartment. Barely more than a bedroom with a small kitchenette to one side, and an equally small bathroom with a shower and bath combo attached to the other side, there wasn't much to look at.
The value of the place was in more than just a place to be safe and warm and clean. It also was strongly related to the other occupant of the place... or at least, that was usually the case.
Miku's beaming smile faltered as she looked around. Kaito, the kind, blue-haired college student who had become someone special to her in the past few months, was nowhere to be seen. No friendly voice rejoined her calling out. Kaito was not in the kitchenette, either. And the bathroom door was ajar, so he clearly wasn't in there, either.
"Did you forget to lock the door on your way out?" Miku wondered out loud, brow furrowing in disappointment. "That's not so smart, Kaito. What if someone came in while we were both away?"
Miku stood for a moment, then sighed, and went to put the groceries into the kitchen. Maybe she could still surprise him when he came back, himself, with a hot, home cooked meal.
"He's sweet, but not much of a cook at home," Smiling fondly in the memory of the first time they had "officially" met, and the jokes they had shared about him burning what he made, were mostly teasing exaggerations. Kaito's experience at the soup kitchen had taught him how to cook just fine. And to be fair, he helped in some fashion with every meal that they shared, when both of them were able to be at home together. But it was fun to tease, so they continued the jokes.
Miku being able to surprise Kaito at home by getting there first was a new thing for her. It had only been a little over a week ago that Kaito had handed her a copy of his apartment key with a soft, shy smile to his eyes, and an offhand comment of, "Just make sure you lock up well if you're still asleep when I leave in the mornings. Then you can come home freely, even when I'm kept late at work or school."
"It's amazing how things can change so quickly," the teal-haired girl stared at her hands for a long moment... took a breath, and banished some other, slightly older memories that were far less pleasant, of how things had been just before she'd met Kaito. Before she'd come to this city. And... before she'd met up with the local chapter of the so-called main "girl gang" of the area, the Punk Ravens, who had helped her, almost from the start.
Things on that front had been pretty rough, lately. Miku had been spending much less time with her friends there lately, now that she had a home base with Kaito at his apartment, but hearing secondhand stories about skirmishes with other nearby gangs put her on edge. One in particular had been giving the girls a lot of trouble recently, but any of them could have a flare up... start a turf war, any time. It was an uneasy thought.
The soup kitchen Kaito volunteered at a few times a week was considered outside the Punk Ravens' territory. It hadn't been an issue yet that she went there frequently, but the more face time she spent with the girl gang, the more recognized she became, the more likely it was that it might cause a problem for her- or for her friends- to go there. Yukari, the second-in-command, and her recent cheerleader-in-love, had warned her about it from the beginning.
There wasn't a lot Miku herself could do to help on the Punk Raven front, in regards to the issues they were having with the other gangs, the teal-haired girl thought to herself, trying to stretch away the sudden stress in her still slightly too-thin body. So to worry about it wasn't beneficial. Their leader was tough as brass balls. Miku knew Lola would handle the problems better than anyone could have a right to expect. It would blow over. Things would only get better from here. Lola would make it work.
Nodding firmly to herself as if to confirm that the future was looking good, Miku picked out, rinsed, and sliced into matchsticks a couple of fresh vegetables to go along with the dinner. Kaito liked almost everything, except certain types of tomatoes. He really was easygoing, and easy to please. Glancing at the kitchen clock, Miku wiped her hands off and decided there'd be enough time to finish dinner in a few minutes. She took a break and headed to the bathroom to relieve herself.
"...No," Miku heard herself speaking before her brain could accept what her teal eyes saw as she opened the ajar door the rest of the way.
The shower curtain was ripped. The rings that normally held it up were sprayed all over the floor in pieces. Like someone had grabbed on top it and pulled to try to catch their balance. On the usually pristine floor tiles and porcelain of the sink and toilet, was a messy spray of dried color... and smears and hand prints in something that looked sticky and dark, reddish brown. The bathroom mirror was shattered, at around the height of a man's head. As if someone had grabbed a head by its hair, and smashed it against the reflective glass to stun the person... once... twice.
The broken mirror, too, had a few dried smears and multiple drips of the dried, reddish-brown fluid stained upon it, that matched the rest of the blood in the room in color and viscosity.
And, at the outer edge of the mirror, where one of the glass pieces was less broken than the others, where there were fewer smudges of blood, something had been drawn there in what appeared to be cheap pink lipstick. Miku stepped over and around the mess as carefully she could, feeling numb as she stared disbelievingly at the insignia of the Punk Ravens. And, over the top of it, crossed out, was an intentional, a gory X of flaking brownish-red.
"It's a message," Miku said dully to her kneecaps as she sat very still on the edge of Kaito's bed. She'd been sitting there for a few minutes, not speaking, and not moving. She wondered in the back of her mind if she should call the police, tell them what the message meant, beg them to help. Cry and scream and beg. But she knew better. It wouldn't be Kaito who was saved, if she called 911. It would be her, the one who loved Kaito, who was arrested, brought back "home." And then... then... no one would care. No one would help. No one would help either of them.
Miku stuffed her hand into her mouth as far as she could jam it in, and bit down as she clenched her eyes shut against her tears, and screamed as quietly as she could through the flesh and bone muffling her sound. Rocking back and forth almost violently as she did this, helpless to stop, tasting the metal of blood running into her mouth, wasn't a good feeling, but the hot burning inability to breathe from panic was her enemy. When she felt like she could trust herself enough, she took her slimy. drool-and-blood-covered fist from her mouth and gasped huge panic breaths until she felt like she could think.
"I have to go," the overwhelmed girl rasped, feeling completely hysterical still. "I can't stay here."
It hit her in her stomach so hard that she found herself throwing up. She barely could grab the trash can next to the bed before she technicolor chunked the remains of her paltry lunch into the plastic bin. Half an egg-salad sandwich. It looked bad, and smelled worse. But it wasn't enough. It took a minute of dry heaving, incredibly painful, her tense stomach muscles sweating with the effort, when she was finished emptying herself.
But a soft sense of non-reality fell over Miku then, and she stood up, not feeling her body parts, looked around, picked up her keys, and then walked outside.
Closing the door behind her was unreal. Like in a dream that drew in strength of reality with each gelatinous step she took, Miku headed down the stairs. She wasn't sure how she had gotten outside, but she came back to herself when she was several blocks over- walking in the direction she'd most recently visited where the main group of Punk Ravens had been staying.
"Lola will help me," Miku said to herself. But she wasn't sure about it. Lola had to look out for everyone, not just her. Not her... who had barely been around lately. And certainly not for Kaito.
"Yukari will help." That felt more real. "Yukari will help."
"...Yukari will help."