Hi readers! Long time no see. This is the first chapter I post in this year. Here, is the revelation of almost all mysteries on this story. Enjoy

"Discuss...your absence?"

"Discuss if I should...resign..."

"No Tsuchiura-kun-"

"Please consider, in regards to my condition. You can always find a new pianist, a more talented, more diligent one. I'm sure there are lots of them in the Music Department." Tsuchiura cut her sentence. He tried to sound and look normal but he couldn't mask all of his sadness. All these two months of practicing together, looking for the pieces together, correcting and complementing each other...must have made this decision so hard on him...

How could he...

Something snapped inside Hino's brain. The letters. Tsuchiura must have thought that the further he joined this competition, the more brutal the letter sender would ruin his life, no, the their life.

The sender gave a different letter to Tsukimori

"There are three letters that we've received so far." Tsuchiura sorted things out. Hino has known that the direction of this topic. He wanted to know about the letter Tsukimori tried so hard (but failed) to hide.

Moreover, his resignation statement be a lure to make them talk about the letters.

"The first is soon after we joined. The two ones are just before each incident." Hino mentioned.

"Yes."

"Did you receive three letters, too Tsukimori-kun?" Hino shot him a question.

Tsukimori nodded.

"Tsukimori-kun, I need you to be honest to us, here."

Suddenly a look of upset enter his eyes.

"Hino, if you are really scared about your life, then you should resign too. The only one he hasn't taken hold of is you."

"...you too, Tsuchiura. You have taken the best decision."

"Tsukimori-kun...!"

"I'm the one behind all these." He answered bitterly. But looking at his two companions' outrageously unbelieving face, he added, "..would you rather wait till someone else falls, to believe it?"

"Tsukimori, no matter what you say, we wouldn't believe your lies." Tsuchiura deadpanned.

"Why does your letter differs from us? Why is Tsuchiura-kun mentioned inside the letter?" asked Hino. Tsuchiura who didn't know what's written there widened his eyes in shock. His genius brain started to formulate possibilities, which is

"Tsukimori-kun.." Hino buried her face in frustration. She didn't use any force but rather she relented. "...Please don't close on us..Tsukimori-kun...we just want to help."

Tsukimori sighed and looked away.

After all their involvement in this matter, I guess they should have known what's behind all of these.

Finally after a quite a long time, he turned back to their questioning eyes.

"The one behind all of this, is my father.."

This made their eyes bulged, as expected. But the next sentence shocked them even more.

"Not the one living with me, of course. But my biological father. I am, after all, not Misa Hamai and Tsukimori Dan's son." Tsukimori continued his story.

-Flashback-

The little boy could not sleep, or rather, tried his best not to sleep. He had been waiting for tonight where everybody was sleeping; so that he could sneak out and ran away.

His body was very emaciated. He was wearing a thin piece of ragged shirt and shorts despite of the cold night.

Papa didn't beat him up tonight. He hasn't even home yet. Mama has gone into her room without even sparing him a glance.

He hasn't eaten anything since morning. His stomach grumbled, but he tried to shut it out by curling into a tight ball.

His body, too was filled with bruises and blackish abusive marks. Even his back were marked by lit cigarette. The scar would certainly remain for a lifetime.

He decided this was the right time to sneak out. Papa wouldn't get home until morning and Mama wouldn't get out from her room until Papa comes.

Slowly he dragged his weary, battered body and trudged into the front door.

Mama was so messed up that she had forgotten to lock it.

The blue-haired boy discreetly slided the door, trying to make as little sound as possible.

He was now in the center room of his small, messed house. Just a few steps until he reached the front door.

Dug! Dug!

He tried to calm his erratic heartbeat, afraid that his mom would hear that from the room across.

He limped, as his body was being hurt everywhere. He passed the shoe rack near the door and took a decisive step to open the door

He did not think too long. Without hesitation, he stepped outside.

It was a rather chilly night in late November. A telltale sign that snow is coming.

A stray wind hit his face, making him gasp. Certainly a little boy like him couldn't prepare any good outfit for this weather.

And it's not like the family had decent supply for clothes as well. Everyday, he just wears a quite old shirt, sometimes tattered as his father often hit him with sharp objects and left the clothes tattered.

Going back? He pondered.

He shivered, hugging his small body with his hands. He could think no more.

No!

He could only go forward. Even if it's cold, he must leave home.

The boy limped. He didn't know where to go and no one were outside. That's good, the neighbours might recognize him and put him back home.

He continued to limp as far as his little,injured feet could carry.

That night, he slept on a dirty, cold abandoned building.

But fate is not so kind. Later that dawn, a commotion broke out as polices caught a criminal who hid in the same place as him. The polices noticed a stray child was there too, and decided to bring him into their office after he was being clarified that he had no connection with the criminal.

He wanted to get away. He was very afraid that by now Papa had gone home and found him missing. If they sent him back, then Papa would beat him way harsher than before.

He did not thrash, he just kept silent during his stay at the police office. That's why he was placed in a room that looked like a reception office, and not being kept under tight watch.

They even feed him with bento too. Not a very good one, but at least it is the first decent meal he'd had in days.

He finally found the chance to get away on the mid-day when everyone was busy and no one was there to accompany him. He ran, or rather limped hurriedly from the police office.

He passed a main street for quite a distance when suddenly he heard someone calling the police that a child escaped.

The little boy panicked. He didn't want to be caught once again. He must find a place to hide, but where?

Luckily he spotted a street cafe nearby. There were square, small dining tables covered in red and white checkers cloth. The tables were surrounded by two to four chairs which cushions matched the checkers pattern.

Since the tablecloth reached the ground beneath the table on all four sides, he decided to use one of them, particularly the one placed at the middle of the tables as a hiding place.

He could only wish that no one would peek underneath the tablecloth. He wished that he would not be found as long as possible.

He strained his ears to listen to the voices outside. It was not a noisy street. Cars passed, once in a while. Birds landed and chirped, then flew again. He could hear people passing, talking nearby. He also heard a man asked someone if he saw a boy with his attribute, which made his heart jumped. But after a while, the man gave up looking for him and his voice was gone.

He sat down, visibly more relaxed since he was safer here. But the pavement was so cold...

He started to nod off, though it was chilling after quite some time, but suddenly, something jolted him up.

Since it was a street cafe, after all, there is also a possibility that a table is being used. This time, two people decided to sit on this fated table.

One was a man that wore dark long trousers and pantoufle and one is a woman that wears knee-length white skirt and short heels. Their feet were placed underneath the table, on his sides intruding the his safe place. So he tried to be stay as centered as possible.

"Dear, what do you want to order?" the man opened the conversation. Sounds of paper rustling were heard. Certainly the menu book.

The man's feet shifted further, making the blue haired child step to the right to evade it. But unfortunately he lost his balance and ended up falling into the woman's calf. He instinctively tried to hold on to something to buffer the damage, but that something is the woman's UPPER thigh.

Oh. No.

"WHAT ARE YOU TOUCHING?!" she bellowed.

Then there was the sharp sound of hitting, and the woman's legs retracted from the undertable. She must have stood. The boy had long abandoned the leg and now could only stare in shock. It's just a matter of time before he was found, and from the sound of the woman's screech, it's certainly won't be merciful.

Should I run now? He thought.

"Oww! Why do have to you slap me?!"

"You are touching my legs! Pervert!"

"No I didn't! See, my hand is up here on the table all the time!"

Both of them suddenly stopped talking. Plotting something?

He could not see what happened above. But the kid braced himself and got ready to run.

Suddenly the clothes were rolled up, and there were two heads, upside down, peeking at him.

The three of them were shocked; one being found and two found something utterly unusual, a kid hiding under their table all this time. He screamed and bolted right away out of sheer panic, hitting his forehead quite sharply on the underside of the table because he stood too fast. His vision blurred, disoriented, but he kept running. Expectedly, the man crouched and caught his little body from behind before he could ran far.

"Hey! Stop here little boy!"

The little boy was on fire. He did the only thing his instinct told; screamed.

The man clamped his hand on the kid's mouth before he could begin attracting attention from the passerby.

"Hey, listen boy." he tried to reason. Even in the most outrageous situation, the man could keep his calm. The boy kept wiggling on his hold. He shifted his other hand; that was not on the boy's mouth to his chest, where he could feel his heart beating too fast, pumped by adrenaline.

His body is too thin, the man remarked, and now that he could see it carefully, his clothes are tattered and dirty, with hints of blood. Just what happened to this boy?

He rubbed his hand on his heart slowly to calm the boy, promising him calmly that he would be fine, and it worked. After he could feel the wiggling came to cease, he released the boy's mouth.

By now, as the boy's adrenaline rush declined, he started to sob silently.

"P-p-please...please don't h-hur' me.."

The man said nothing, he was not a noisy and expressive person to begin with and the boy kept chanting his words. He became very compliant in his in his hold. It's like he has lost all his strength to fight the man.

"Listen boy. We're not here to hurt you." the woman walked into his field of vision and took out her tissue and ran it across his tears-streamed cheeks.

The boy still sobbed. They waited until his crying could subside. The man gradually loosened his grip on the boy as he could feel the boy had no more energy to run.

The kid surrendered, he even leaned his head back a bit to his chest.

"Are you lost? If you are, then we'll take you back to your mama."

At the mention of his mama, he suddenly looked frightened.

"No! No! Not mama!" he started to sob again. New wave of tears rolled down his face.

"B-But she must be worried about you." the woman reasoned. But the boy was beyond reasoning.

"Dear, maybe we should just took him to my house. Just for a little while." he added.

"Are you sure? He could stay in my hotel room if you are busy." the woman offered.

"But you have your concert tonight, and, no one would watch this little runt."

"Okay, boy, we won't take you to mama." the woman offered, as strange as it sounded to her own ears. The blue-haired kid suddenly stopped crying, and listened to them intently.

"...but, do you want to go with us, instead?"

The child stared back at them. He nodded slowly.

"Okay then, what's your name, dear?" The woman offered her hand.

"Ryousaki" he slowly accepted it.

"My name is Hamai Misa and this is Tsukimori Dan, my fiancee."

-Flashback ends-

"...they settled down the case as soon as I said what has happened in my old family. The father and mother was imprisoned." he confessed. There were not a single emotion written on his stoic face. Everyone noted silently that he no longer called his biological parents 'my'.

"They've done nothing but torture and neglect me. I was a child born out of marriage."

Hino couldn't stifle a gasp. Tsuchiura elbowed her slowly to remind her that it's kinda rude.

"Before they got married, I was adopted as my father's son. He acted as a single parent legally. They didn't dump me into an orphanage."

"I was moved to Tokyo, following my parents' original city. They came to Kyoto that day because Mother had a concert and Father got his business matter to take care of."

"...so you were not Misa Hamai and Tsukimori-san's biological child, after all." Tsuchiura commented. At the moment, the waitress decided to bring the food over for them. They stopped talking about the matter and thanked the woman in service instead.

"Yes. We've kept it as a secret. No one knows, except for those people who were personally close to us, like your mother."

Tsuchiura's eyes widened. Oh! So she knew all along...that's why when he asked her back then about Hino and his discovery of Misa Hamai's peculiar age, his mother told him to wait for Tsukimori to tell him the truth.

If Tsukimori is an adopted child, then it made some sense. The only-sixteen-year-old difference between him and Misa Hamai could be explained.

"We live peacefully until two years ago, my biological father, presumably has done serving his sentence suddenly contacted my family. He heard about me, and..." he clenched his fist, though his voice didn't raise a bit. He stopped as he allowed himself to take some deep breaths.

Even the stoic Tsukimori could get emotional at this point.

"...demanded me back."

The two Gen-Ed students' eyes widened. They'd never knew that Tsukimori could have a very dark problem like this. And it's been scarring almost his entire life.

"He sees that now I am a rather famous violinist and I could be a powerful asset for him. He is no longer poor and powerless. He is currently Kyoto's yakuza leader, and he is abusing his power, using his underlings to cause incidents everywhere to force my parents to surrender me. He even shot my father's car weeks ago.."

Hino gasped, hand flew to her mouth. Tsuchiura said nothing but his expression was equally shocked.

"Is he...okay?"

Tsukimori nodded. "The bullet broke the mirror but missed my father, but it panicked my mother since I came home nearly unconscious with both of you. She thought he hurt me too."

Oh, so that's the reason his father was home at afternoon, which is something almost impossible for someone as busy as Tsukimori's father.

Now, all mysteries that surrounded the family was being explained.

"When finally on Mori's accident, he was inside the school. Observing and waiting. When everyone's attention was being dragged into the explosion, he forced me to go with him and explained his doings to me."

"Is that why you're gone after the explosion?" Tsuchiura couldn't help but retort back. His disappearance after the incident has made everyone who knows about it suspicious. His attitude after it happened also didn't help. He even boldly told them to blame him if they want. He didn't even bother being considered guilty.

"He said that he has sent us warning letters."

It clicked. Yes, there were letters on our desk, locker...

"But it's to cancel our participation on the competition in Kyoto." Hino added. "..it must have come from one of our rivals. Or maybe someone else from our school who envy this team..."she trailed off.

"You know how some people envied us when we join the last concour."

"Some Music-Ed student even locked you up on a closet." Hino supported. "..they might take part in these things. The letters, I mean."

Tsukimori laughed sardonically, but they knew that it was not to mock them.

"He will use everything. Hell, even if I joined cooking competition, he will still terrorize and do all these!"

Just that time, they saw how the usually level headed, stoic Tsukimori lost his mind. He didn't shout, but his face is almost akin to crying.

Frustration, deep trauma, heartache, and even guilt to everyone was bottled up inside of him, and he didn't have any chance for them to be expressed. Not at school, not at home. Not anywhere.

Awkward silence filled the room. Everyone who heard Tsukimori's little outburst was looking at them. But fortunately, there were not so many people to begin with in the cafetaria.

"...i'm sorry." he breathed. The usual gloomy look on his face turned into something much worse. It showed immense guilt, desperation, deep humiliation, and defeat.

He could no longer place a stoic mask. It must be agonizing for him, but he forced himself to speak, though his eyes could not lift themselves to see anything other than the table in front of him.

Tsukimori was directing his sorry to both of them. Not just them; but to everyone who has been hurt by his maniac father. Silence followed, and suddenly the unexpected happened.

Tsuchiura, who was silent all this time suddenly stood and grabbed Tsukimori by the collar in an angry haste. He cornered Tsukimori on the wall. The victim didn't seem to be panicked. He sagged, didn't even try to stand on his own feet like a doll with it's strings pulled. It's as though he had expected and willingly accept this assault.

"Tsuchiura!" Hino panicked. She stood abruptly and tried to pry his hand off Tsukimori's collar, but it didn't budge. His other hand clenched to a strong fist. He was ready to strike the blue-haired violinist.

"Tsuchiura-kun, please, not here!" Hino pleaded. Some other customers started to watch the commotion but no one dared to approach. The aura was just too dark.

But Tsuchiura got a reason, Hino thought bitterly. His brother had been hurt, in a precarious state between life and death. What he did was plausible. While Tsukimori is not the one who directly do this, but he could foresaw what happened, yet he didn't even try to warn.

"Know what, Tsukimori." Tsuchiura who has been silent all this time spoke up, expression unreadable. "..nothing could be changed, but..."

Hino tried to make a meaning from his words. What couldn't be changed? His resignation? Tsukimori-kun's past? After all that happened to his brother, Tsuchiura could take an offending course of action and it was not something unreasonable. Hino braced herself. If Tsuchiura wanted to strike him, then her hand is ready to latch onto his fist.

He tightened his hand on Tsukimori's collar, as if it is possible and growled, "Why didn't you tell!? You should have told us if you were blackmailed! This is not only about you, damnit!"

They stared at each other before Tsuchiura suddenly released him. Tsukimori's eyes were just as lifeless, but a hint of shock was apparent on them. With all strength left his body, he would fall to the floor if Hino didn't catch his body and steady him.

Tsuchiura sighed gruffly. "..why do you have to shoulder everything, huh? Look at yourself! You're totally screwed!"

The violinist didn't say anything, out of shock, or out of misery, no one knows. Both of them looked at each other, one with lifeless eyes, one with anger before suddenly Tsuchiura walked away, seemed aware for the long time he took to buy some meal and took the it on the table. Then he said without looking, "It's getting late, both of you should go home."

Tsuchiura walked to the elevator and went to his family.

Hino just couldn't believe her ears. Did Tsuchiura got angry because Tsukimori tried to shoulder all the problem by himself? As far as she remembered, he'd never blamed Tsukimori for the calamity his brother experienced.

'..nothing could be changed..'

Now she understood what that means. Whatever happened to his brother is irreversible, he just wants Tsukimori to trust them more, and solve this problem together.

"Tsukimori-kun.." she touched his hand.

His face hardened, lips pursed. He looked every bit miserable, no one would be surprised if they see tears on his face, relieved even. That way he didn't have everything bottled up like this. Though Tsuchiura has said that he didn't blame him, his burden looked as if it hadn't been lifted even a bit.

He didn't even try to muster his expression into something less miserable before looking at her eyes. What for? She had already known everything. Who he actually is, how pitiful his carefully-set up life turned,

"Come." he muttered while passing.

He drived her home, but said nothing. Hino too, can't come up with anything. Too afraid if she spoke something inappropriate. The situation was truly precarious.

The car shortly stopped in front of her house, breaking her from her musings. She didn't pay attention to the road ahead.

"Thank you." she prepared to open the passenger seat's door and take her violin on the back seat. But just one glimpse she stole on his face, her initial intention wavered.

His eyes were of the dead. It grew worse, even. He only looked ahead. Her hand hovered on the door handle, before she settled it on her lap.

"I'm not leaving." she announced.

So this is chapter 12. I remembered the first time I wrote this story is in 2009 (though I started publishing this in 2011). It's 2014 now, so it's almost 5 yrs . .Truthfully, I haven't even write the next chapter. How's this chapter? Please review