Prologue

Three playing cards slid across the smooth table at lightning speed, a blur of blue on white. They came to a stop seamlessly in a row. Kirihara Akaya contemplated the pile for a second before stabbing a finger down on the card in the middle.

Niou flipped it over. The card depicted a five of spades. "Nice try, kid."

"That's not possible," Kirihara said stubbornly. "There is no queen of hearts." He flipped over the other two cards. "What?" He pressed his nose onto the queen in his right hand.

Niou shook his head, already losing interest.

"Do it again," Kirihara said.

He turned his head when Yagyuu walked by and paused, staring at Niou quizzically. "Oh, you're still here, Niou-kun." Although he phrased this as a statement, Kirihara sensed the question behind it.

"Of course I'm still here, Hiroshi," Niou said, and he met Yagyuu's steady gaze.

"Do Yukimura-kun and Sanada-kun know?"

"Know what?" Kirihara asked.

"They will."

"All right." Turning his eyes away from the game, Yagyuu strode out of the library.

"What was that all about?" Kirihara asked, probing Niou's unreadable expression.

Niou just shook his head and took the three cards in his hand. "Watch carefully," he instructed, "This is the last time."

And Kirihara did.

Without bravado, Niou threw the cards facedown on the table and began to arrange them methodically. Once again, three cards flashed at lightning speed on the table, coming to a stop before Kirihara's narrowed eyes.

"This one," he said, pointing to the card on the right.

Niou smirked slightly and flipped it over.

The queen of hearts stared back at them.

That afternoon, Niou Masaharu didn't change with the rest of the regulars. "He wasn't in any of his classes, either," Marui Bunta noted. But Niou skipped class all the time, so nobody paid any attention. Only Yagyuu Hiroshi knew the real reason behind Niou's absence, but he kept that fact to himself.

The four regulars—Marui, Jackal, Yagyuu, and Kirihara—finished dressing and filed out of the locker room. Walking away at a slow saunter was the unmistakable form of Niou Masaharu. "Where's he going?" Jackal muttered.

Yukimura looked to Sanada and Sanada to Yanagi. Then, Yanagi sighed and said, "It seems that Niou doesn't attend Rikkai Dai anymore."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Marui demanded after the brief moment of shock they all experienced.

"He's transferred to Nagoya Seitoku."

"But that's in the Toukai Region!"

"Fuck this," Kirihara said. He began to go after Niou.

"Akaya, you can take this up with him after practice," Yukimura said.

Kirihara stopped. "But, 'Mura-buchou—guys!" Kirihara looked at the neutral faces of his teammates. "You can't just let him go!"

Yanagi turned a sharp gaze on Kirihara. "Don't be stupid, Akaya," he said. "It's not our decision."

That was enough to shut Kirihara up for the rest of practice. The regulars minus one member practiced as usual, ran drills and hit volleys and Yagyuu worked on his singles game. When practice ended, Marui dressed quickly and left without a word. Kirihara looked after him, like he wanted to follow, but after a while, his expression set into one of gritty acceptance and he turned up his collar to the wind and jumped on his bike. The rest of the regulars went their usual ways.

Yagyuu ended up walking with Yanagi on their mutual paths to their houses. "You knew, didn't you?" Yanagi said

"I did. But does it matter?"

"I suppose not. Do you also know why he's leaving?"

Yagyuu didn't say anything for a moment. Then, he shook his head. "He will tell us when he wants us to know."

But they both knew what Niou was about—not the boy himself—and they knew that this was an ending. Niou liked to leave things untied and messy. It meant he always had something to go back to.

Yanagi sighed.

Yagyuu and Yanagi parted ways at an intersection. Yagyuu went home and finished his homework early. When he was done, he checked his phone, half expecting a text from Niou. His inbox was empty, of course. With nothing to do and the sky too dark to practice tennis at a nearby court, Yagyuu lay in his bed and traced the cracks on his ceiling with his eyes.

He supposed Marui went to Niou's house after practice and got as detailed of a story as one could from Niou. The next day, life would continue and Marui would share his not-so-half-baked theories on the sudden school transfer—because the magenta-haired youth was as observant as Yanagi when he wanted to be—and soon the school would be filled with rumors of Niou Masaharu's disappearance.

Yagyuu would have to face the brunt of the student body's curiosity. But that wasn't so bad since he didn't actually know anything of concrete value. All he knew for sure was that Niou had left Rikkai, and that meant he either wanted to or didn't care.

Then, because nobody else was in the house, Yagyuu laughed. He could imagine the headlines for this week's newsletter, could imagine the confused faces and the distraught fans. The other boys on the tennis team would begin practicing with renewed vigor, of course, convinced they had a chance of becoming a regular now that Niou Masaharu was gone.

Yagyuu sighed. He didn't missed Niou. And he wouldn't miss Niou. From the very beginning, Yagyuu had known: there was no becoming friends with a switchblade.

The end always came without warning. Saturday night at a café, Niou had told him personally between sips of tea.

"We weren't really friends, were we?" Yagyuu asked.

Niou's expression, straddling the line between mischievous and cold, remained level. His tone came out sarcastic when he said, "All good things end." Yagyuu wasn't sure if this was genuine or mocking. With Niou, you never knew.

"It was nice knowing you, Niou-kun," Yagyuu said and stuck out his hand.

Niou didn't say anything back. He reached over the table and shook Yagyuu's hand, a small gesture of respect. Then, he scooted out of the booth and walked out of the café, quickly getting soaked in the rain. Yagyuu sat there for a while, stirring his warmed-up water. Then, he too left the café, the rain dripping off of the sides of his umbrella.

Genuine or not, it was like Niou said. All good things end.

A/N: Hey, so this is the new prologue to Janus. I know it's a bit shorter than usual, and as a warning, most of the chapters are gonna be pretty short (1,000 to 2,000 words). I hope you like it.

Also, I'm thinking of changing the title to Shattered Mirrors. Tell me what you guys think. I'll probably give you guys a chapter's notice before I change it officially.