It's been a long time, guys. Bear with me here. Life is tough.

My friend at school, Faye-chan, helped me write this. Thanks girl. :P

The week had gone by fast.

I had spent my time violently interrogating my parents over the phone, asking them about their ties with the Journalist. My dad had instantly hung up and my mom went on tangents about how "her little Ayano-chan was all grown up already" and shit. Honestly, I love my mom, but she was being pretty damn useless.

I hadn't learned any new information about my ties with Info-chan, but I had been honing my stalking skills. I was constantly on my computer, viewing Senpai's Facebook profile, learning about his plans for their week off, what he'd be doing, who he'd be doing it with, etc. He seemed to stick with fooling with his guy friends, but occasionally he'd spend time with a girl. When he did, I'd follow him, looking for any romantic interest between him and the potential rival.

I didn't find any, thankfully.

I had also been arranging with Info-chan to meet up at the computer lab sometime on the week when school started again, most likely after all the clubs had dismissed. I still had to get Oka the evidence that Sakyu and Inkyu were evil, and I knew that Info-chan could do it for me. I needed to get it to the Occult club president fast-I couldn't dawdle when my precious Senpai's love was on the line!

4:15 PM on Monday. I text Info-chan on the sunny Sunday afternoon from inside my house, a box of cookies at my side. Senpai liked this particular brand, and anything that Senpai liked, I loved.

No. 3:25 AM.

You'll need to bring footage.

Fine. And don't worry. I will.

Where do Sakyu and Inkyu live, by the way? I had narrowed their location down to the northeast side of town, from where they said they usually hung out on their Facebook profiles. They were very secretive.

5739 Codex Rd. NE.

Thanks. I'll go find them now.

As I open Google Maps, my mind spins. Codex Road, like Codex Gigas? The evil devil bible unholy witchcraft book? Even the street name was paranormal. Oka has a reason to worry.

I walk out of my house, jump onto my bike, and begin to follow the directions supplied to me. The sun is warm against my skin and my neck sweats slightly from my thick layers of hair covering it. Glimmers of white and yellow dance across my phone screen and I have to awkwardly askew it so the sun doesn't shine on it.

I arrive at the street.

For some reason, I was expecting haunted, broken down houses, black grass, unearthed skeletons, and an aura of creepiness when I first arrived. But this street was like any other; decorated with quaint little houses, glowing grass and neatly trimmed lawns. Carefully, I pedal up the gently rising asphalt road, making sure not to breathe too loudly in the comforting yet eerie stillness of the street.

5732... 5734... 5736... 5738...

5739.

It looked like any other house, almost unnoticeable. White with dainty glass windows framed with marble sills and a golden-brown door. The only difference here was that the hedges, the grass, the lawn in general, wasn't trimmed perfectly to the millimeter. Some stalks were long and whipped in the wind; others were short and could only manage to lean to the side.

But that didn't disturb me as much as it should have. I could hear voices from inside.

Placing my bike against a hedge and pocketing my phone, I slide onto all fours and crawl through the prickly grass, pressing against the side of the house.

"Give that back, Inkyu!" I hear a voice complain. It's the snooty, superior tone of Sakyu Basu, without a doubt.

"Give me my contacts back!" Inkyu demands from seemingly the other side of the room, followed by two sets of off-sync footsteps thundering through the house. I pop up high enough to press the camera of my phone against the window. I open my camera app, hit record, and hope I get something useful.

I stay frozen, kneeling beneath a window with my phone kissing the window surface, sharp grass blades dancing across my skin, for the longest time ever, until I hear both sisters go into another room.

I stop recording and look at the video I have. It's one of Sakyu and Inkyu chasing each other around, the former holding a phone and the latter holding two shimmery objects-cosmetic contact lenses, I realize. Sakyu pins Inkyu down, takes the contacts from her, and Inkyu slaps her sister hard across the face before getting up and leaving.

It wasn't the best video ever, but it could be worked with. I send the 45 second video to Info-chan and wait for her response.

I can use this.

What are we going to do with it?

We can edit it to make it look like Sakyu and Inkyu are shaking their human disguises off and practicing molesting each other.

Disgusting.

You're no better.

Okay, okay. When will this be done?

I can crop it and edit the tempo on my phone right now, but we'll have to edit it in the computer lab.

How long will it take to edit it in the computer lab?

If we're both working together, then only around 30 minutes.

Okay. Good.

I'll hack into Sakyu's Facebook and post it so it looks like die-hard evidence.

Thanks, Info-chan. You're the best.

Don't thank me for any of this. You're just a client, and I'm just a provider.

You also owe me 25 panty shots for this.

WHAT?!

What 'what'?

Oh. Right. Sure. I'll get them to you in a week.

I sigh and turn my phone off. Of course, I had to repay Info-chan.

Might as well send her the few nudes I had taken in the bathhouse the other week.

I open my photos and select the slightly blurred images of Saki, Yuna, and Midori that I had on my phone, all in their naked glory, and send them to her.

Nobody wants photos of dead people.

But it's a nude!

This only covers two. Saki is dead. Nobody cares about her anymore.

Fine.

I close my phone.

It's the dead of night and I'm biking fast, My hair is flying in thick streams, my face is prickling with the cold, and my phone's data plan is drying up fast with the amount of time I spend on Google Maps. It is hard to navigate the streets at 3:25 AM, right?

Info-chan had told me to come here super early, in case the editing took longer than it should. She had the keys; obviously. She always had everything. The grit against my crimson bike's tires created a stream of brownish-gray, fine powder, that scraped my ankles and wore out the paint of my bike as I peddled still faster; leaning forward to be more aerodynamic as the cool predawn breeze whipped overhead.

The hill leading to school loomed over me like a deep, dark shadow-which it was at the moment-and the sakura trees were blurred to smudges in the far-off distance. But I wasn't scared; with my future with Senpai on the line, I had used to being scared. A bit.

I was up and over the hill in a few seconds, inhaling deeply to regain my breath as I, shuddering from the cold, awkwardly leaned my bike against the nearest vertical prop and began to run towards the school. Two silver glimmers of light shone from within the school-Info-chan's glasses' reflection, I knew that shimmer anywhere. "Info-chan!" I call quietly up the silent pathway as I begin into the annex where all the shoe lockers are kept. I don't take off my outdoor shoes as I walk in-I find it unnecessary-and I head straight for the plaza.

Info-chan is waiting on the fountain edge.

"Hi, Ayano." she tells me sweetly, smirking coldly. "You came."

"Of course I did," I retort sharply. This weather was getting on my nerves and I didn't have time to argue-I needed Oka to get rid of Ayame ASAP.

Wordlessly, Info-chan takes me to the computer room, logs into a computer, and sits on her chair, humming as the machine opens her profile. "W-what can I help you with..?" I ask nervously, sitting a chair away from the crimson-haired girl as to not show any friendship with her; we were only client and provider, after all, and she was much superior than me in terms of knowledge and ideas. Hell, without her, I wouldn't be this far.

"Can you search up creepy backgrounds?" she asks me, her gaze transfixed on her glowing screen, her fingers only blurs and streaks of tan as they graze over the keyboard.

"Okay," I tell her softly, and as the computer finishes buffering, I open the internet and begin my search.

I wasn't as focused as I was on finding the creepiest, spookiest, most demonlike (is that a word?) background as I could as I was on impressing Info-chan with my maturity and just overall coolness for a serial killer. She didn't acknowledge that she was sitting next to a mentally deranged psychopathic schoolgirl, only continued to ask me favors as if I, and she, too, were just regular people.

I emailed everything Info-chan asked me to find to her, and watched as she made the most terrifying video edit ever. Like, I was legit scared. In half an hour, the crimson-haired girl had produced the video and was now hacking into Sakyu Basu's Facebook profile to publish the 20-second long edited video.

I had to tell her now.

"Info-chan." I start awkwardly, a little more sharp than I had intended to. "We're related."

She turns to look at me, and for the first time, there is slight confusion in her red eyes. "No, we're not."

"O-our brothers were related...!" I argue, my face growing hot. "Someone told me so, and..."

"Let me show you," she tells me prestigiously, "how you are wrong."

And then she pulls me into a kiss.