As Alice ran back toward the back of the house, Shun looked around blankly. "Did I do something wrong? What—"

"I told you not to bring him here," said Julie angrily toward Runo. "Look at what happened."

Runo simply glared at Shun before chasing after Alice.

The raven-haired student also ran forward, but Dan held him back. "Shun, what do you think you're doing?! Runo and Julie clearly don't need your help."

"Dan, let go. There's something not right about Alice, and I need to talk—"

"I think Alice will scream even more if you go after her. Now leave her alone!"

Shun reluctantly let his best friend drag him outside as he stared at the crowd inside the house. Why does her name and face seem so familiar? I swear I've never met her before, but something about her reminds me of something else.

Runo and Julie searched all around house until they found Alice leaning over the edge of the balcony upstairs. The bluenette opened the sliding glass door slowly and asked, "Alice, what's wrong?"

The redhead continued leaning over the balcony with her hands over the ears. She shook her head and repeated, "Please don't kill me... Please don't kill me..."

"No one's trying to kill you, Alice." Runo reassured. "You were scared to see Shun, right?"

Alice screamed and leaned even closer over the edge.

"Runo, you might want to watch your words..." Julie whispered.

"Well, at least I know that she's afraid of him." The bluenette raised her voice and added, "Alice, as long I'm here, I promise to keep him away from you. Are you feeling better?"

Their new co-worker stopped shaking her head and turned around. "Really?"

"I'll handle it from here," the Australian told Runo. "I think Dan just came up the stairs."

"Thanks, Julie." The bluenette backed up slowly and greeted the brunette at the stairs. "I hope Shun didn't come up here with you."

"Relax! I made sure that he didn't follow me upstairs, but I seriously regret inviting Shun over now. What was I thinking?"

"Honestly, none of us saw this coming, Dan." Runo sighed and glanced at Julie, who was still calming Alice down. "This is worse than I thought..."

-x-x-x-x-x-

She's giving me this weird feeling of familiarity, but I just can't explain it...

"Shun, what are you doing?"

"What the—"

The raven-haired student hid his phone quickly as Dan entered the house, but the brunette already saw everything that was on his friend's phone. "Scrolling through photos of Runo's party, huh? I know who you were looking at."

"Dan, it's none of your business."

The brunette took his phone out and searched for the same photos on social media. "You were looking at Alice, weren't you? I told you to leave her alone, Shun. She's absolutely scared of you."

"But I don't know why she's so scared of me. I can't let that go until I know why."

"Shun, are you seriously suffering from love at first sight? If so, then you've failed badly. So much for Runo and I making a pact to change your social life."

"But Dan, don't you think something's wrong here? Alice and I met for the first time, but she already has an inexplicable bad impression of me."

"Maybe she's screaming at you because she doesn't want you going after her for any reason."

Going after her...there's more than one meaning to that. Without a word, Shun flipped over the whiteboard to reveal the complicated character map from before. At this point, anything is possible.

"Shun, are you okay?" As the raven-haired student worked on the whiteboard, Dan tried to catch his friend's attention, but to no avail. "I know what that look means. Please answer me before you go too far down this spiral, Shun."

"Be quiet." The brunette finally shut up after hearing Shun's angry command. "I'm trying to concentrate, and you're not helping." After a long moment of silence from reading all the notes on the white board, he then entered his room and searched through shelves and drawers until he found the binders he needed. "Everything makes sense now."

"Yeah, but nothing makes sense to me," complained Dan as he stood outside the doors. "Wait, I recognize those binders. Weren't they your—"

Shun closed a binder loudly in front of brunette, leaving the latter even more stunned. "Thanks for the tip, Dan. Right now, I need to ask Alice about what exactly happened that day."

"You mean about the welcoming party? I don't see—"

"That's not what I'm talking about."

"Shun, you're going down that spiral again..."

Dan was still confused about what Shun had discovered, but the raven-haired youth knew exactly what he was looking for. He pulled out one sheet of paper to read—a long, detailed psychological evaluation of some patient, in which most of the information was redacted. Everything's a match. Now I just need to ask her for the truth.

-x-x-x-x-x-

As Alice packed up her laptop before leaving work, a short boy with navy blue hair stood in front of her desk. "Today was another wonderful broadcast, Alice. The viewership ratings increased all the way."

Another short boy but with platinum hair stood in front of the empty space by the redhead's swivel chair. "I think you would be perfectly fine holding up the show on your own. You have better ideas than Dylan."

"Rafe, Jack, it's not a big deal. I'm just doing what I do best," replied to her other coworkers. "I need to go home now. See you all tomorrow." After ascending the elevator, Alice answered a call from her aunt. "What is it?"

"There was a traffic accident near the highway exit, but I'll be there as soon as possible."

"I can wait. Take your time." The redhead hung up just before exiting the elevator and held her forehead in pain. Why can't stop thinking about him? If I hadn't gone to Runo's party, then nothing would've happened. My nightmares have gotten worse. She drank from water fountain and washed her face in the restroom before stepping onto the sidewalk.

However, waiting for her there wasn't her aunt, but the one person that she didn't want to see the most.

After seeing Alice walk away in a rush, Shun left his spot at the sidewalk tree and ran after her. "Hey! Can we talk?"

He was about to grab her arm until the redhead noticed and slapped his hand away. "Get away from me! You've caused enough trouble already!"

"At least listen to me first." Shun backed up, and Alice stood calmly while glaring. "I honestly don't know why I'm making you feel bad. We've never met before, and I want to clear any misunderstandings between us before this—"

Suddenly, Alice snapped her fingers loudly, prompting Shun to stop. "You want to know why I don't like you so much?"

The raven-haired youth stopped in place as the silence went on.

"It's because your mother wouldn't leave me alone even after the case was closed!"

After another long moment of silence, Shun concluded, "I was right all along..."

Alice gasped after realizing that she fell for his trick. "You lied! You knew everything all along! Just because your mother's gone doesn't mean you have the right to stalk me!"

"But I'm not stalking you! Three years ago, there was an incident in a female locker room at Wardington School of Integrated Health Sciences. Three girls were murdered, one is still comatose to this day, but the last one girl made it out alive. I didn't realize that the sole survivor was you until—"

The redhead screamed again. "How do you know all this?! A couple of us were underage, meaning that none of our names could be disclosed. I can't believe your mother violated patients' confidentiality!"

"That's not the point. My mom couldn't finish a final psych evaluation because she died in a car accident. Since no one else was willing to take on the case, all leads went cold, and the file was closed. But, I know there was something else behind it."

"I don't care! Like you said, it's been three years. The police already caught and jailed the assailant, and I graduated already. My family's doing everything to help me forget, but you just had to bring everything back up! Why can't you just move on?"

"But don't you think there's more to why you're the only one alive? I don't think revenge was the motive, so—"

"That's just your speculation. I need to go home now, so leave me alone."

The redhead scurried away after cutting Shun's sentence off. However, he took out his phone and played a certain audio track before Alice walked too far. The elegant, soothing violin tunes on the music file prompted her to stop running. I knew this specific track must mean something. Mom wouldn't keep a seemingly irrelevant MP3 for nothing.

The redhead began hyperventilating as she fell to the ground, hands over the ears. "Shut that music off immediately! I don't want to ever hear it again!"

"Alice, I need to know what this song means—"

"Play that song one more time, and I'll go insane and back to where I once was again!" With that said, the redhead screamed one more time before shoving Shun and running away.

The raven-haired stopped his fall by holding onto a tree. He regained his balance and watched Alice disappear around the corner. Mom, you were right. Alice's PTSD is just as severe as you described it in your initial reports, but proper therapy will heal it...and reveal the truth about three years ago.

-x-x-x-x-x-

Just before ending her shift, Alice organized loose papers on her desk and was about to stack them when someone approached her desk, making Alice drop everything. "I'm so sorry! Let me clean—"

"Alice, are you okay?" Runo stood confused in front of Alice, and the redhead didn't know what to do next. "You look pale. Are you sick? If you are, then maybe—"

"I'm not sick. Thanks for asking." Alice picked up the fallen papers and discreetly asked, "Can we talk outside?"

The bluenette stared back with a confused face, but finally nodded. "Sure. Let's go outside."

Once she was certain that no one was around, Alice explained everything. "Runo, I don't know if I can handle this anymore. Ever since seeing Shun at your party, I haven't slept well. You don't notice this, but I can tell that Dylan isn't satisfied with my work. A few days ago, I saw Shun waiting for me by the parking lot entrance. He—"

"Wait—he still actively looked for you after all of us told him to stay away from you?!" Runo screamed, catching attention from bystanders. "Sorry for screaming. As much as I don't like how he's so persistent, you need to solve what's going on between you two as well. Is there something—"

"Just keep him away from me," Alice interrupted. "That's all that matters."

Runo blinked a few times for sighing. "I get it, Alice. However, Shun's a human being himself and won't always listen to me...or Dan." At the same time, Runo's phone rang. "Dan just happened to call me. What's up, Dan?"

Alice whispered quickly, "I'm getting off work early, so see you tomorrow."

Meanwhile, Dan's voice projected from the bluenette's phone. "Runo, I can't pick you up later because my supervisor put me on an emergency mission, so see you—"

"Wait! Are we still having dinner tonight then?"

"Probably not, because now we're on the move since our target just drove off. Bye!" With that said, Dan hung up boarded a colleague's police vehicle. "Billy, follow that blue pick-up truck right now! Turn your radio to Chan's frequency!"

"Got it!" The blond inserted a key into the car's engine and turned some dials on the radio. "This is Billy Gilbert speaking, with Daniel Kuso beside me."

Crackling noises echoed before a female voice spoke up. "Dan, you heard what I said about keeping your eyes on the target. Since Billy's also here, it wouldn't hurt for both of you to go after him. Now move!"

"Yes, madam!" replied the two trainees before driving off.

After a few minutes of being followed, the blue pick-up truck sped up quickly. Billy turned on the car's sirens and stepped on the gas pedal. "The suspect knows that we're coming after him. By the way, what did this guy do?"

"He's a potentially dangerous individual who—watch out! Turn left immediately!"

After the blond colleague made a sharp turn, he quickly caught his breath. "Thanks for the warning, Dan. We've been going around in circles, and the truck makes surprise sharp turns every so often to ditch us."

"Chan needs to stop assigning difficult—" The brunette stopped midsentence after seeing two familiar people arguing on a nearby sidewalk. "What are Shun and Alice doing here?!"

"Dan, can we focus on the vehicle pursuit, please? Chan made us—technically you—do this for a—"

"Did Alice just cross the street?!" screamed the brunette in response to seeing the redhead dash from one sidewalk to the other. "Billy, stop the car! The pick-up truck just hit the brakes after—"

"Aaaaaaahhhhhhh!"

The police trainees stared ahead blankly, then at each other, after hearing an unexpected scream. After stopping his car, the blond unfastened his seat belt and got off first. "I think the driver hit more than just the brakes. Sounds like someone got hurt."

"But...the only other person near Alice...was Shun." After a moment of realization, Dan also got off quickly and ran in front of the pick-up truck. Sitting on the asphalt was the police trainee's best friend, who was easing the pain off one of his knees while looking back. "Shun! You did get hit!"

Shun was in no mood to contest Dan's lame jokes, and there was only one thing important on his mind. "Great. I lost Alice."

While the blond subdued the escaping suspect, the brunette scratched his head and called an ambulance. "Shun, I don't know what you're doing, but getting hurt is out of the question."

"I'm fine." After switching hands to alleviate the pain on his knees, Shun felt something metallic on the ground. It's a bracelet with some charms on it. It clearly doesn't belong to me or the other guys... "Where's Alice?"

Dan sighed at how relentless his best friend was. After finishing his call, he looked around. "Sorry man, she's not here. I haven't seen her since she crossed the street a while ago."

Billy approached Dan while dragging the suspect by the handcuffs. "What do we do now? Chan told you to keep your eyes on this guy, and now he ends up hitting Shun."

"More reason to press charges on the driver, I guess." Wailing sirens echoed in the distance and became louder. "The ambulance is here. Which one of us is staying?"

"Dan, you should accompany Shun to the hospital. Seems like he was doing something important, and you're better at keeping him in check than I am."

"Huh, good point. See you later." As paramedics escorted Shun into the ambulance, Dan quickly called Runo. "You have no idea what just happened! I saw Shun and Alice arguing on the street while chasing a suspect, and the suspect ended up hitting Shun as he crossed the street! He's fine, but Alice ran off. I wasn't expecting either one of them to be out here this early."

"I know Alice requested to leave work early today, and maybe Shun didn't have any afternoon classes. But what were they thinking? Alice won't tell me anything."

"Neither will Shun, but every time he thinks about her, he always digs up old folders from his mom's belongings. I don't know what Shun is thinking."

"Well, we all know what Shiori-san did for a living, and I find it hard to believe that Alice would be associated somehow. This is a horrible start. How do we help Alice overcome her fears while helping Shun reestablish his social life?"

"I think the problem is deeper than what we know." The brunette turned around and saw paramedics about to close the ambulance doors. "Got to go. Shun's off to the hospital now."

"Be careful, Dan."