The autumn wind breezed lightly on the city sidewalks, blowing fallen leaves along with them. They swirled together gracefully, creating miniature tornados in their wake... which were all destroyed in instants as a small boy clad in a white hoodie, black hair and blazing eyes raged against the wind. By now, the boy himself had forgotten the original reason why he was running in the first place. All he knew was that as more and more of the city's voices piled into his mind, the faster he needed to run.

It was deafening. The whispers. The screams. The laughing, the weeping, the yelling, and it was all at him. All at him. He knew. It made him want to cut off his ears, pull out the monster's eyes; to destroy himself to make them just. Shut. UP.

Be quiet already! Don't you know that I get it?! You hate me! Everyone hates me! But not as much as I hate me! So just shut up!

Shutupshutupshutup!

...

P-please shut u-

His foot skidded on a crack and he tripped, smashing face first onto concrete. He picked himself up grittily, growling at anyone who offered him help. Instead of tending to the swelling bruise on his cheek, he smacked at the pounding swell deep inside his eyes.

Go away monster... go away... just die and let me die with you...

As if in response, even more voices came to knock on his shaking mind. He grasped his forehead in pain. "Urgh! GO AWAY!"

He couldn't take this anymore, he couldn't. If he stood here any longer, the world would suffocate him with its hate. He NEEDED a way out. A place to breathe. Away from everything. He turned his head, changed his direction, and began running again.

run, Run, RUN-

-and never look back.


The boy eventually slowed his blind sprint down to a stiff trudge. He had lost the human voices hours ago and felt nothing but relief, the sounds of the forest acting as his life-line back to sanity. With a few exceptions (hamsters and rabbits were freaky), it was much quieter than where he had come from. A lot less judging too. More like a home than he'd ever had.

That's not true, a voice spoke to him amidst the humming of the trees. His own voice. He bit his tongue and squashed it down.

He had come to this forest regularly before his, agh, adoption, often at any chance he could. Yet he always returned back to the orphanage eventually, and always to more punishment and bullying regardless of how much Shuuya vouched for his good character. Why had it taken him so long to finally just run into the woods and not return like he always dreamed about?

'Cause as shitty as it was, that place was my home-

He trampled over the voice with a mental bulldozer and replaced it with irritation. Be quiet, there's no need for stupid sentiments here! He was finally, finally alone, and so he could finally turn off his pow-

-BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP-

He startled and almost ran head-first into a tree, sending birds flying. 'Dumb human!' he heard them think, his power not yet turned off. He looked around frantically, searching for whatever could be making that noise-

Oh. Wait. That. He hastily reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone.

"Crap," he cursed. Had he really not noticed it buzzing this whole time? Or was Ayano really so much of a dummy that she hadn't thought of calling him until hours after he ran away?

Doesn't matter. He turned it off. He supposed he ought to probably return this, just out of his better conscience... but, that would mean going back to where civilization and their awful, gross (and to borrow a quote from Tsubomi), appalling minds were.

Yeah, no. Sorry, Kenjirou, Ayaka. He'd need a phone anyway, right? For wherever he was going to...? He began to pale.

Where was he going to? Back to the orphanage? The thought of it made him want to throw himself off a cliff, or worse, into the river. They'd just send me back to the Tateyamas anyway. Maybe I could just stay here... But if he did that, he should have brought more things along than just the clothes on his back, not that he had planned any of this, of course.

He started to pace around, anxiety building upon frustration building upon even more anger. What about food and water? Heck, where would he stay? No matter how much he'd like to, it didn't seem probable that he could live in a forest all by himself for so long. Shoot, this was really looking bad, terrible, horrible, impossible, hopeless, monstrous-

"AH!" he yelled at the growing headache throbbing steadily behind his eyes. His terrible, stupid eyes. He pushed all other worries away; the only thing that mattered right now was turning off his power. Taking a deep breathe and concentrating on words like quiet, alone, safe...

"...Hanako..."

Little by little, the animalistic chatter in the background slowed, dimmed, and disappeared. Finally, he was alone and calm, deep in the confines of his own mind.

His eyes turned gold again. So gold, in fact, that he didn't hear her coming towards him at all.

"Seto?"