It had taken much longer than I anticipated for the police to arrive, especially considering there was a station on the street, and I spent the time trying to figure out who to call.

Taichi was my first thought, he was my brother after all, and would surely know exactly what to say to calm my nerves. But I thought better of it. He was dealing with his own problems right now. He wouldn't admit it to anyone, but he did still love his childhood sweetheart, Sora. She was on tour with his best friend Yamato, the rock star. When Sora and Yamato, or Sorato as we used to call them behind their backs, had still been at school and in the same classes as Taichi, it had been a bit awkward for him, but then they had broken up and Taichi had somehow managed to convince Sora to give him a shot. It had been okay for a while, but they left each other amicably. Yamato and Taichi were still friends and Sora still hung out with them all the time and we all thought it was all in the past. That was until Sorato started back up again in the autumn of last year.

Now that they were in America with Yamato's band, Taichi couldn't third wheel like he had been, and I think the realisation that they were so serious about each other even after everything that had happened, was the real reason for his emulation of his father's relationship with the bottle.

I couldn't call Sora or Yamato either, I realised, because my phone company would probably charge me over a thousand yen per minute for an overseas call. The same went for Mimi, who had moved there so long ago that I scarcely remember having a conversation with her since the day it all ended.

I couldn't call Ken and Miyako, at least not right at this moment, for the same reason I couldn't call Taichi; they both had way too much on their plate to carry the burden of the 'first call'; what with the baby coming and all. She was eight months in, and Ken was working night and day to provide for the new addition to the Ichijouji family. I didn't want to bother him, but out of everyone he was the one I should really be telling. However he probably wouldn't be in the best mood to comfort me when I told him. Knowing Ken, he would probably be in a much worse state than me. He and Daisuke had been partners after all.

I probably should have called Jun, Daisuke's sister, but since Daisuke had left none of us really had reason to be around her. I checked my phone but I didn't have her number. I'd never really known their parents, and I didn't have their home number either. I did know that they probably wouldn't care; I had it on a reliable source that they had practically said good riddance when he'd disappeared.

Jou was finally in his last year of medical school. The problem was that this meant he was studying for finals, and had been for the past month. He was much older than me but we kept in touch more than the others would probably realise. He was very empathetic and when I had been dealing with all the Takeru business, he had proven a much wiser confidant than my brother. In deference to that service I really couldn't call him this close to his final exam and disrupt his preparation.

Obviously, calling Takeru was out of the question, and I only considered his name briefly as I scrolled through my contacts.

Why couldn't I find anyone in here to talk to? Was I really that alone that I couldn't find a shoulder to cry on? Ichiro wouldn't understand, he wasn't one of us, and despite our relationship I still hadn't told him why I was so empty inside. He had asked, but when I avoided it he let it go. He understood that I didn't want to talk about it and didn't begrudge me my one secret. He didn't know about Daisuke and I either, so I guess it was actually two secrets. I hadn't told him everything about Takeru either, so that made it three.

I hovered over his name in my contacts list. How was I going to explain to him about this? It would come out eventually, there was no point trying to hide a murder investigation from him, but the questions I knew he would ask I wasn't ready to answer. Not yet anyway.

I looked at the bedroom door; behind it was which I knew all too well. It was closed but I knew that from here I would just be able to make out the perpetually spiked maroon of Daisuke's hair, had the door still been open. Thank god he had managed to grow out of the goggle wearing stage in his life, or I think I may just have completely lost it. I pictured the knife again and how I had managed to go right up to him, so close that I could, and did, touch him, without noticing it sticking out so prominently. I couldn't even remember if he had felt cold to the touch when I tried to wake him.

How could I miss it? A big freaking handle hovering in mid-air behind the man I had last seen while he was still a boy and I hadn't even seen the thing.

I looked back down at my phone to shake the image from my head and saw another name I hadn't considered yet: Iori. I looked back at the door, thinking I'd probably get more empathy from what I knew lay behind it, than Iori. It wasn't that he was emotionless, far from it in fact, it was just that he preferred to keep those things bottled up.

I went through the names in my head again. I'd crossed off nine of the other cursed few, ten if I counted the one behind the door not ten metres away from my position at the kitchen table. We had been twelve, eight originals, and then the four additions three years later. It must have been one of the original group. I scrolled down again. '...i, u, e, o,' I thought to myself as I went,'ka, ki, ku, ke, Koushiro!' How could I forget the guy I travelled through India and China with during that fateful Christmas nine years ago? Out of everyone he was clearly the best person to call. He knew about the history, he was a good friend, and he wasn't dealing with anything at this particular moment.

He didn't have a girlfriend so no surprise pregnancy, he wasn't a rock star (I almost smiled as I thought about it, but then I remembered where I was and why I wanted to call him and I frowned at myself instead), or neck deep in exams. He still lived with his adoptive parents who had only moved to the other side of the bridge, not the other side of the world, so no international phone call; he didn't drink and could actually, you know, talk to people without long dramatic pauses. Oh and he wasn't a complete douche.

Something made me hesitate though, I wasn't quite sure why but my finger hovered over the send button for a fraction longer than it should have, sure enough that fraction became top heavy and it became much longer than it should have.

Twelve of us from Japan and in my time of need I can only call one of them. It really was pathetic. After all we'd achieved, after all that time spent away from the real world together, I had one friend left to depend on.

Time to call.