Friends

A/N: I've been working on this chapter since last December and had plan to update sometime on January or February. Since it was quite chilly, it influenced my thoughts.

Thanks to Murder-of-the-Night for reviewing. Thanks to the Duh for following. Thanks to both of you for putting this story in your favourite list. I hope you will like this chapter too. :)

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Chapter 2

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Misao rushed to her friend and shivered in cold as she stepped inside the bedroom. The room was freezing.

"Idiot!" Misao slapped her forehead and quickly closed the sliding door of the balcony adjacent to their room which was wide open. She turned on the portable heater which went off automatically after running with timer before going next to her friend's bed to wake her up.

This morning when she woke up, she stepped out to the balcony to check how much cold the air was and left the door open as it was relatively not bad. She was so unmindful that she didn't realize if she leaves the door open like this, her friend who was still sleeping might catch cold.

Her friend was shivering in cold who tossed the blanket on the floor in her sleep. She quickly covered her friend with the blanket and called her while shaking her body lightly.

"Kaoru-chan, Kaoru-chan, wake up." Misao kept on shaking her. "Wake up Kaoru-chan, it's only a dream. Wake up."

Kaoru opened her eyes and sit up while huffing. She looked around and saw she was in her apartment bed and Misao sitting next to her. She blinked twice. "So, it was just a bad dream then?" She thought.

She hugged Misao. "Oh! Misao-chan, I was so scared."

"It's okay. Don't be afraid. It was only a dream." Misao pushed her back to look at her face. "Now get freshen up quickly. The breakfast is ready and I'm now preparing our bento."

"Thank you Misao-chan for being here." Kaoru smiled and unmindfully looked around the room while rubbing her both arms and wondered why she was feeling so cold.

The room has no window. It has two small ventilators and two doors.

Among the two doors, the one which suppose to make the room cold was closed and the one which was open couldn't cause the room to get this cold since it is facing the wall of a corridor which leads to the kitchen and living room and another bedroom which belongs to her brother. The opposite wall of their bedroom has two rooms which are the storeroom and the bathroom.

Kaoru took her phone from the top of her bedside table to check the time. But it was switched off. She tried to turn it on but it went off by giving signal of too low battery. She sighed. She forgot to recharge it last night before setting an alarm to wake up on time. "What's the time? Do we have enough time?" She asked her friend.

"Umm… It should be around six-twenty." Misao replied recalling the clock of the living room.

"Six-twenty! You should have waked me up earlier Misao-chan."

"I thought you woke up already."

"And I was thinking to take a shower before leaving." Kaoru sounded disappointed.

"You still have forty minutes. We'll leave at seven. Now, I'm going back to kitchen. You better not take too long if you don't want to leave with an empty stomach." saying that Misao left the room. "And don't catch cold." She shouted from the end of the corridor.

Kaoru shook her head and put her phone to recharge. Then she rushed to bathroom taking her towel and bathrobe. After brushing her teeth she turned on the shower and stepped in. As the water hit her body from head to toe, she closed her eyes in relaxation and remembered her dream.

What a nightmare. She thought. Thank god. It's only a dream. She sighed and tried not to be bothered by the dream but she still couldn't get it out of her head when she remembered the appearance of Battousai and his katana. The vision is now blurry but she couldn't forget his terrifying stares at her. She wondered why did she had such a weird dream and why Battousai wanted to kill her.

Well, this wasn't really the first time she had such nightmare. In fact, she's been having such obnoxious dreams for the past couple of days.

"Of course." A possible reason came in her mind." It was probably because of the chat we had on the mysterious murders taken place within past couple of months." She recalled the discussion she and her friends had on the serial murder case three weeks back.

All the victims were somehow related to the police. They were sources or undercover agents of the police. It was Sanosuke who joked stupidly saying it was probably done by the Battousai of modern time. She didn't like that joke at all but he had a point. Based on the legend, the Battousai never left any witnesses. Moreover, the police still haven't arrested anyone. They also couldn't disclose any names on their suspects since the case involved a syndicate that involved with drug business. No one knows who are distributing those illegal drugs in the markets and among youngsters. The police said only one thing. That is their colleagues who were killed were investigating that drug market.

Kaoru felt sorry for not only those unfortunate agents but also their family and friends and also, the young people who are now getting addicted or involved with that drug.

"Maybe I took the case a bit too personally. Hm... This could be the only reason." Then she wondered what she should do about it. "Should talk to someone about this? But whom should I talk to? Sensei? Will he think I'm crazy?" She wondered. "Oh, why Kaoru do you want to embarrass yourself. It's only a dream. Just forget it." She advised herself.

But she couldn't and so, her memory was telling her what she saw in her dream. In that dream she and Misao were late to return home as they were given detention class by their homeroom teacher Hajime Saitou who is not actually their homeroom teacher. "Weird! Why did I thought he was my sensei?" He is actually a community police officer she knew back in Kobe. She laughed at this as she thought what it would have been like if he was really her sensei. But her laughter faded away as she remembered her old home in Kobe and her parents. It made her sad.

In her dream it felt like she lived in Kobe but was heading for this apartment which is in Tokyo. It was even weirder that she thought she's been living in Kobe all these times and her school was in Kobe too.

Yes. It's not like she's been living in Tokyo all her life. It's been only two years since she moved to Tokyo with her brother who is now an eleven year old kid and gets pissed off if he is called a kid or even given the reminder that he needs to be taken care of by his sister. It hurts his pride very easily since he thinks it is he who should be taking care of his sister instead. She smiled at this thought.

He is not home. He went to stay at his friend's place as they were working on a school's project. They were making a mini-robot from the concept of a mecha anime. Kaoru smiled and felt happy for her brother for finding such good friends. Diagoro is a good kid and a genius one too. He wants to become a rocket scientist one day. But her brother wants to become a police officer when he grows up, just like their father.

At this thought some tears formed in her eyes and washed away with the shower's water as it trickle down her cheeks. She closed her eyes and rubbed her eyes and face while trying to clean the tears from her face and eyes. But it took ten more minutes to pull of herself together. She turned off the shower when she could stop her sobbing and put on her bathrobe. She walked out of the bathroom while drying her hair with her towel after wiping her face.

She became upset because she remembered why she and Yahiko were living in Tokyo and their parents no longer living with them.

She remembered how one day her mom was killed in a bank robbery where she used to work as a cashier. Her dad was a police officer. He left very early in the morning that day for his duty which was patrolling the locality with his police car along with his partner. He was devastated for not being able to protect his beloved wife.

But no one knew what was going to happen that day. No one knew that there was going to be a robbery in that bank. No one knew that that was for the last time her mom had prepared breakfast for everyone. No one knew that that was for the last time her mom had prepared bento for her. No one knew the previous evening was the last evening her mom had prepared dinner for the family. No one knew. No one knew anything. The day started like every other usual day. No. Not quite usual. But like one of those lousy mornings when she woke up late and yelled at her eight year old brother for occupying the bathroom for too long. She got out of the house without having the breakfast her mom prepared for everyone with great care. The meal which she didn't have time to taste were wrapped with care and put in the refrigerator.

That was the first and the last time in her entire life she even forgot to thank her mom for the Bento she prepared for her. She learnt about the robbery and shoot-out from one of her friends during lunch-break who was surfing the net on a cell phone. She didn't want to finish her lunch or stay in the school at that very moment. So she rushed out of the school without taking permission from the teachers and ran as fast as she could to reach the bank where her mom worked.

Yes. The bank was not too far from her home. It was around sixty minutes walking distance from her home and her school was exactly opposite forty-five minutes walking distance from her home which was an apartment. She ran and ran as fast as she could. She didn't have the patience to buy a metro ticket. She forgot that she had a bike and that morning she went to school biking. She couldn't think of anything. She was crying and running. Running and crying. Then when she reached there, about an hour and fifteen minutes later, she saw the robbers already left the bank.

The policemen were stopping the onlookers from creating any unnecessary crowd. She was just watching all that wordlessly. She wanted to check out how her mom was but a policeman stopped her from crossing the yellow barricade. When she told the officer that her mom worked in that bank, the officer told her to go home and wait for her mom to return. But instead listening she yelled at him. She told him that her dad was a policeman too. But the officer still didn't let her cross the barricade.

At that time a middle aged woman who was standing among the bystanders told her to go home too and so she did. When she reached home, she called her dad on his cell phone. No. She didn't have a phone back then. She didn't need one. Her dad told her she was too young to have her own phone. He would buy her one once she becomes a senior. But that day she really wished she had a phone too like she had the key of the main door. Anyway, her dad answered her call and told her to wait for him at home. He came home to pick her to take her to the hospital where her mom was taken.

She couldn't believe herself. She didn't realize that her mom was in that ambulance. The ambulance which passed her with loud siren when she was running towards the bank which was still at least sixty minutes away from her. She blamed herself for not paying attention. If she had paid attention, she could sit beside her mom in that ambulance and reach to the hospital with her. Then her mom would not feel lonely knowing that her daughter or a family member was there besides her.

She still does not understand it. Why? Why out of so many people on street and in the bank, her mom was the only one to get the shot. Why her?

When she reached into the hospital, she found her little brother was already there waiting in the waiting room outside the operation theatre along with his homeroom teacher and their dad's partner, Officer Saitou Hajime who went to school to get them but her friends informed her teacher that she already left school when she heard the news. Her dad didn't scold her for her action. He could understand. She was worried.

The robbers shot her mom because she pushed the alert button under her desk to inform the police that there were robbers. By shooting her they made it clear to everyone inside the bank that they were serious and would not be sorry to shoot others too. And so, they loot as much as possible in five minutes after the shooting and left the bank.

Three months later her dad was killed in crossfire where the police were raiding the hideout of those robbers.

At that time she was fourteen. It's been three years since there both parents were killed in the same year.

By now Kaoru finished drying her hair but was sitting on her bed, looking at the ground and trying not to cry again. She shook her head to clear her mind and took deep breath few times and released slowly to relax her mind. She needed to talk to someone about her nightmares. But she didn't know with whom she should share it. People might just laugh at her. She sighed. She wished she could talk about this with Aoshi-san who always speaks and gives advises logically.

Almost twenty minutes later she went to the kitchen taking her school bag after combing her hair and putting on her uniform.

"You have ten minutes in hand." Misao reminded Kaoru who already had her breakfast and finished preparing their bento.

Breakfast was milk and cornflakes. Yes. That's what she had as well for breakfast. For which she had enough time to prepare "delicious" bento.

"I know Misao-chan and I'm sorry for being late. What did you prepare for lunch?"

"Spaghetti with meatball." said Misao with prideful smile but stopped smiling as she noticed Kaoru's puffy eyes. "What happen to your eyes? Were you crying?"

"No." Kaory lied and gave her friend a smile. "Some shampoo went inside when I was washing my hair."

"Try to be careful next time. You look like you've been crying your eyes out."

"Really?"

"Really. I just hope this redness will go away by the time we reach to school."

"I hope so too."

After breakfast both friends left their apartment for their school.

Kaoru forgot her cell phone and Misao forgot her homework.

TBC