Natsume.

"Hi. Uh, my name's Natsume. Welcome to the neighborhood!" He looked like an idiot, standing there on the steps all alone.

"Thanks." My voice was monotone, I really didn't care. We, my mother and I, had been moving around a lot since my father left us. This place was just like all the others, we would be leaving soon.

But we had stayed... And then she died.

"Hey. You're our new neighbor, right? What's wrong?" He sat down beside me, his face wrinkled into lines of concern. I didn't want to tell him... and so I didn't.

"It's nothing..." I muttered. "Just a little home-sick." In a way, it was true. One of Mom's favourite sayings had been 'Home is where the heart is.' My heart was with Mom, buried under the ground.

Eventually, though, I began to live again. No matter how horrible the wound, it either heals, or you die. And I didn't die.

"You, trombone freshman, go help the basses clean up." Erg, stupid upperclassmen...

"You're my new neighbor, right? I didn't quite catch your name the first time."

"Oh. It's Haruka." I was looking at him almost curiously, who was this guy, and why did he care?

I even made friends... Or really, just one.

"Oi, Natsume! Imma get you for that!" I yelled as I ran after him around the open field in my soaked clothes.

"Yeah right, like you could out-run me!" He grinned, the dry summer wind blowing his wet red hair around.

"Erg, you stupid-fast bass clarinet." I groaned, then flopped down on the ground. The little park's grass was yellowing and dry, but we really didn't care. No one looked after it, and so no one else came. It was like our own secret place.

He sat down next to my lying form, and we looked up at the thin wispy clouds together.

"Haruka?" he asked.

"Mm?"

"Where... Where's your mom?"

My eyes never left the sky, but I could tell he was looking at me.

"It's just that, the only time I saw her was when I welcomed you to the neighborhood."

"She died. She died a long time ago."

"Oh..." His face turned towards the sky again, and we stayed like that for a long time, me lying on my back with my arms under my head, and him sitting up cross-legged.

That was the only summer we had together, and the only full band season.

The rain poured down out of the sky, it pounded on rooftops and cars... and on a lonely figure on the sidewalk.

"Natsume... What's wrong? Are you okay?" I didn't have an umbrella, and so I couldn't keep him out of the rain like I wanted to. Instead, I sat down next to him and tried to endure his trials with him. But of course, one can only gain access to a heart with the owner's permission.

"It's not really anything..."

I squeezed my eyes shut, trying not remember those words, phrased differently, yes, that had come out of my mouth at the beginning.

But I did not walk away as Natsume had done, for we were strangers then. I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him into a hug. He cried on my shoulder, and told me what had happened.

His parents divorced, his mom taking his sisters to another city far away.

He changed after that. I knew him for only a year, but seemed like all my life. We met freshman year, and he died a few weeks before his sixteenth birthday, my sophomore year.

"Where's Natsume?" I asked his new section leader, a Tuba named Kitaa.

"Didn't you hear? He quit band."

I became increasingly worried as time wore on, and he changed. Natsume was no longer the fun-loving video game obsessed nerd he used to be. The question was, who had he become?

"Nastume?" I turned the corner, and there he was. He had his back to the cement wall of the gym. My heart fluttered in my chest as he looked at me. His hair was messily spiked, his barely-there eyebrows pierced. He wore black skinny jeans and a baggy black T-shirt with the logo of some obscure metal band. His eyebrows pulled lower and his face showed the slightest fleeting expression of shock before resentment clouded his face.

"What do you want?" His eyes showed nothing but contempt for me, and hostility radiated off of him.

I don't remember what he said after that very well. I don't remember what I said, either. I do remember the phone call, though.

Ring...

Ring...

Ring...

"All right, all right, I'm coming!" I yelled at the inanimate object.

"Hello?"

"Hello. Is this Matsuoka Haruka?

"Yes...? Who is this?"

"This is the hospital. Do you know an Akiyama Natsume?"

"Yes. Is anything wrong?" Faint stirrings of panic rustled around in my stomach.

"Yes. I am afraid so. Mr. Akiyama died a few minutes ago. I'm sorry."

I dropped the phone. It clattered to the linoleum, still on call.

"Ms. Matsuoka? Ms. Matsuoka, are you alright?" I heard come squeakily from the phone.

"Yes... I am all right..." I said shakily into the phone after picking it up. "How... How did you get this number?"

"Mr. Akiyama had you in his "emergency contacts". Is there something wrong with that?"

His emergency contacts... Did he still care, or did he just forget to remove me?

"No, everything is fine. Goodbye." I hung up before she could say anything.

It was creeping up on me, the nothingness. Like an numbing mist, it washed over me. My mom would have called it shock.

A.N: Hey guys... I know this is sudden, but I think I may stop this fanfiction. I won't erase it, just stop posting. Good news is (I guess) that I'm probably going to post a new fanfic. It is called "Ribbons" or something close to that. I probably won't post it (if ever) until a couple months from now. Sorry, I guess...