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End of Now

Monday—June 22, 2021

"Ren, I need Ren on the phone. Now."

The ravenette looked up from his chess match with Goro, frowning when he saw Ryuji's face turn from playful to serious. He murmured something inaudible but handed the phone over with a troubled expression. Ren placed the device between his hand and shoulder, walking away to avoid being overheard.

"Makoto?"

"Ren, have you seen the news recently?" she pressed, voice suppressed with shaking urgency.

"A few days ago—"

"I'm not talking about days," Makoto interjected without apology, rustling over the receiver. She clicked away on a keyboard. "An article was published fifteen minutes ago."

"On what?"

There was a pregnant pause before Makoto spoke again. But, this time her voice sounded strained and raspy. "Bernard Gahr. The man whose desire we stole? Ren….he's dead. "

Ren swore he misheard but the trembling in her voice made him fearful. He pressed the phone closer to his ear and held it there with his shoulder as he pulled out his own, desperately searching for a scrap of news. His fingers stopped scrolling when he spotted the headlines of an otherwise unassuming article.

"Did you find something on it?" she inquired cautiously.

"He committed suicide."

The words rang out, but they sounded foreign—surreal. He shook his head, breath taken from him in seconds. Ren's hands shook as they held his phone, eyes traveling down the page to read what happened.

"How are you going to tell the others?" Makoto asked, her voice almost ginger. "I suggest—"

"It's okay," Ren said with conviction and while he valued her advice, he could not bring himself to take anyone's but his own. "I'll talk to them first."

There was another pause of silence before Makoto spoke again.

"Are you okay, Ren?"

"I'm fine," he responded curtly, pinching the bridge of his nose, glad she could not see him. Before she could ask further, he ended the call.

Ren let out a shaky breath and leaned his back against the wall, slouched over as he looked at his phone, reading a different article that said the same thing: a suicide. The why was unknown but he was determined to figure it out.

However, he would have to tell the others at some point—it was a matter of how. Of course, his first instinct was to tell Goro first, but something told him not to this time.

"Ren?"

The voice jolted him from his intestinal turmoil. He looked up to see Sophia staying at him. The AI, no doubt, would have known, yet she didn't say a word. In fact, he was no longer sure she still had access to the world's database now that she was human for the most part. Still, he had to ask.

"Can you find anything on Bernard Gahr?"

Sophia looked concentrated but her face betrayed the disappointment. "No….I don't think I can do that as a human now."

"It's okay," Ren said quickly, pocketing his phone and pushing himself from the wall.

"But what's the point of me? How can I be humanity's companion if I can't be an AI?" Sophia asked timidly, eyes cast to the ground and head hanging dejectedly.

"There's more being a human companion than knowing everything," he said gently and put his hands in his pockets, shoulders slumping as he tried to focus on his own issue.

"I couldn't help but notice Sakamoto's disquietude," Goro said as he rounded the corner and into view, narrowing those reddish-brown eyes. "Are you going to tell us or have the pleasure of keeping us in the dark?"

"I made a mistake," Ren admitted hoarsely, hands curling into fists in the pockets of his pants. "And I can't fix it this time."

The Detective cupped his chin in his hand as he listened to what Makoto had told Ren, looking deep in thought.

"And you are willing to take the blame?" Goro finally concluded after a few more moments of prolonged silence. "For the sake of whom, Ren?"

He chuckled humorlessly but there was something else. While he smiled, it was hollow but intense. "I'm their Leader, Goro. I will do what I can to protect them…."

He looked down the hall in their general direction where they had all gathered.

"Even when they played their parts equal?" Goro protested.

"They wouldn't have acted on their own," Ren said with a heavy sigh. "What happened to Gahr wasn't their fault."

Goro fell silent at those words, having no rebuttal to something so close to the truth. Instead, he merely dropped his hand to his side. "So, you are determined to shoulder this responsibility alone?"

"That's not how I see it."

"So, how will you tell them?"

Ren shrugged his shoulders, looking at the tips of his shoes while his mind raced with a hundred scenarios, each more unfavorable than the last. Finally, he forced himself to meet Goro's eye and immediately felt overwhelmed. The other stood before him with his arms crossed neatly over his chest, hand tapping his nose thoughtfully. He wanted nothing more than to envelop him in an embrace, one that would take him away from this place, or perhaps he would emulate those two very special seconds from yesterday, but there was some unwritten rule to never mention it again….act like it never happened….no matter how much he wish they could say it did.

"Then let me help," Goro offered.

Ren relented to the temptation and nodded, pushing himself off the wall. Together, the pair ventured into the living room where the buzzes of the conversations died immediately. Ann looked up from her spot on the couch and frowned, pulling her legs closer to her.

"Gahr is dead," Ren said, albeit his voice rang clearly and never wavered. "He committed suicide about two days ago."

There was a chorus of gasping; Ann had even clapped her hand to her mouth while Sumire buried her face in her hands. Ryuji rushed over to the natural blonde and draped an arm around her shoulders and because she did not protest, he stayed at her side.

"It wasn't your fault—any of yours," Ren said and rubbed his wrists unconsciously. "It was mine, but I'll fix it."

"How?" Ryuji asked flatly, looking at his friend with a helpless expression. "What can we do now? He's dead, man. He offed himself and it's probably because of a mental shutdown…"

He looked to Goro for some sort of confirmation. However, the Detective merely kept his face stoic.

"Leave it to me," Ren said with a nod.

Short chapter but it's a lead to a new part of the plot.