Decided to go reread a manga that I really enjoy when I thought "Hold on a sec... this seems to be a bit suspicious. What if...?" This is the result of that little thought. It is semi-canon compliant. Obviously, I am going to twist some points but I want it to be as canon as possible because then people actually start to think, "Wait a sec... what if that's true?"

Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I can't draw to save my life.

0.

It was the little things that should tipped him off, really. But then again, he was one of the more oblivious people. And really, that just made it easier for everything to carry on as it always had.

I.

Perhaps it was the eye patch that should have tipped him off initially. He could not remember a single time when she had removed it and looked directly at him. He never noticed that she would shift her gaze slightly, just to the side enough to where is looked as if she was making eye contact but really she was avoiding his gaze. As if she was afraid of what she would see, of what she already knew.

She would only take off the patch near him when there was an object that would help their investigation, like a picture of sorts or a roster. Or she would remove when they were in a crowd of people she already knew the fates of so she could pretend she didn't see what she saw. It was only a matter of time though, she knew.

Time she did not want to acknowledge.

II.

Perhaps he missed the signs his family had been showing him, signs that he purposefully ignored and buried in the back of his head that only came about in nightmares. His grandfather never acknowledged him, nor his aunt, whether he spoke or not and no matter the volume. To his grandfather, it was almost as if he didn't exist. But he chalked it up to his grandfather being swept away in the grief of having lost the elder of his two daughters quite a few years ago.

The way his grandmother would always read a paper around him, referring to him in the third person, should have been another sign. Her comments never seemed to completely match up to their conversations, though he figured it was her old age catching up with her. Not once did he notice that his aunt was never in the same room with her.

Never did he notice the distance with which his father talked, the edge to his voice that betrayed a fear. The calls were short, clipped, and carried and undertone of... something. Longing on his father's part, which he assumed was for his mother. And something else that he could not recognize.

No, his ears were as deaf as his eyes were blind to the signs all around him.

III.

His own memory betrayed him from the start. There were small gaps he couldn't explain logically, so he told himself that he had dosed off. A reasonable, believable explanation. Supposedly, he had been in the town two years ago, according to his father, but he didn't remember anything. Incidentally, that was the time that he developed lung problems. Perhaps that should have let him know there was something strange going on.

Maybe he wasn't sick but his body was trying to tell him something.

Maybe he should have listened.

IV.

Misaki Mei saw him long before he ever saw her, before he knew of her existence, before everything. She had seen him before he had lung problems, before he was officially a part of the town. She had seen him with his aunt and then again days later. He was different, staggering with difficulty breathing but she said not a word as she passed him by. She had hoped that he would not return because she knew what would happen if he did.

When she spoke to him during the class camp, she would admit that she lied to him. Repeatedly. Hot once did she look directly at him, she didn't need to. The truth was apparent to her but she refused to accept it because he was the only one to treat her kindly. She also ignored the signs, pretended they didn't exist like the class pretended that she didn't exist.

But in the end, it was all for naught. She had hoped it was his lungs that she was seeing, that it was a terminal illness but, of course she was lying to herself. She had been lying to herself all along and she knew it.

Other than her eye, there was one other way to tell the "extra" apart from the others. A lingering side affect, a pain or sudden injury that was was suddenly a part of them. A reminder of their death.

V.

He had a nagging thought in the back of his head, one that surfaced in the back of his mind and came to him in the form of nightmares. He would see himself with a hole in his lungs, an unexplainable hole that lined up exactly with where his lungs had severe pain. He refused to acknowledge those dreams as anything more than paranoia.

But he was wrong.

VI.

The art teacher suffered from headaches, often brought on by the sound of two hard surfaces coming into contact with each other. She blamed it on sinuses, on sensitive hearing, because she was an adult. She knew the curse was real but she tried not to believe it, hoping that her unbelief would lessen the impact.

She was wrong.

VII.

In her final moments, she remembered. The pick-axe in its downward arc brought back the memories, the reasons for her headaches. A tear slipped down her face as she remembered the rock contacting her skull, the ultimate cause of her death though paramedics claimed it was drowning. The face above hers ignited a fear, though, that she could not explain.

Then she knew no more.

VIII.

In his final moments, he marveled at the cruel irony of the situation. She was the one before him with weapon in hand, just one month before graduation. She was the one who had claimed his innocence. He remembered the smell of smoke, the pain in his lungs as he passed into the darkness when he died, something that had haunted him. Oh the irony that same weapon was being used on him by her of all people. A part of him had always known it would end like this.

The hammer fell. Acrid smoke filled the air.

He smiled cruelly at Misaki Mei.

Sakakibara Kouichi was no more.