A/N: i know i said mid-october. but this chapter is really fucking long so it makes up for me being a lil late. this chapter is a little different in some parts than the rest of the story. it goes back and forth chronology wise. i hope it isnt confusing. again, i take no responsibility for any issues bc im lazy. i read the whole thing through twice. its so long. please enjoy 3

xx. If I was an angel, I'd be begging them to cut the wings off me, just so I could be here with you, darling.

One year and seven months later.

"This feels so official," Harada Misaki muses as she fidgets with the microphone placed on her shirt collar. She chuckles but she seems nervous. "And you really want to hear from me?"

"Yep," Sakurano Shuichi says from behind the camera. He's sitting with his legs crossed, a notebook with prepared questions open on his lap. His cameraman nods at him that they're ready to start. "Everything you're willing to share."

"Okay. Where should I start?"

"Wherever you want. Where's a good place for you?"

Misaki hesitates. "I met Kuonji at a bus station. He wasn't alone. Tono was with him. Though I guess I should explain… I had some home troubles and I'd always had trouble fitting in with kids at school. I was something of a 'bad girl' you might say. It's embarrassing how hard I tried back then." Misaki laughs, her fingers self-consciously rubbing up and down the sweater on top of her arms. "I… uh… ran away. From home. I don't remember why. I had lots of fights with my mom but nothing out of the ordinary. It's not like she was abusive. We just had some trouble getting along sometimes. I think I was just trying to prove something to her-that I didn't need her, that she shouldn't take me for granted. I don't know. Dumb stuff. Stupid stuff. But I… I was just a teenager. I was fourteen back then. I was just a kid.

"And when I saw them, I guess I was sort of magnetized. Tono was handsome and funny and made lots of jokes. He was smoking and I guess he just seemed cool. And Kuonji… He was all charisma. Witty little one-liners, really profound wisdom, stuff like that. He talked to me like he saw right through me, right to my core. Like five minutes after we met. He read my mind and then told me he was God. He was laughing and Tono was laughing and even I was laughing but… I believed him. He was God. Right up until the very end."

Misaki sits still and quiet in her chair. She invited the documentary crew in just a few hours ago. After they had set everything up for the interview, she had asked the lead director's-Sakurano Shuichi-advice on picking a decent, not-creepy smile. He'd been surprised by the question, until she explained, "I've never been on camera before." Then he told her the smile she had was perfect.

These interviewees-starting with Harada Misaki-were all a bit frazzled, even a year after Kuonji Teru's death. Years of worshiping a con-man will do that to you.

"I guess I just thought they were part of something new, something different and better. Something outside of the system. I didn't even know what the system was and I still envied them for it. Again, I was just a kid."

"Is that why you joined?"

She blinks at his question and then shrugs. "I guess. Mostly though it was because they were so friendly with me. They got me, especially Kuonji. They understood me. They wanted me. They acted like I was special, different, better. And I fell for it." She wipes her eyes, her voice choking on her words. "I wanted to believe them so I did."

"So in all those years, you never once saw your mother?"

She blinks rapidly to dispel the tears waiting to fall. "Um… No, not once. I felt really righteous, like, 'Aha! I bet she regrets yelling at me now!' and I kept up that mentality for a few years until it was too late. I started missing her a few years ago and by then I was too scared to ask Kuonji for a visit."

"About Kuonji: Did you ever get a sense that there was something off about him? Something wrong? Before the end, of course."

Misaki smiles sadly. "Yeah. When I met Tsubasa."

Ando Tsubasa is the perfect subject. The camera loves him. He is cool, friendly, charismatic, and casual. He jokes with the sound guy as he attaches the mic to his shirt. He has an ever-present and handsome smile on his face, even when asked questions about disturbing, violent events.

"-so in the end," he finishes answering a question. "It really had nothing to do with Kuonji at first. I just loved Misaki so much that I was ready to believe in anything she believed in."

"Misaki told us that before she had you join, she had discussed the issue of you with Kuonji. She said that he wasn't enthusiastic about you joining at all, that she had to fight him on it. That argument was the first time he hit her. Did you know about that?"

Tsubasa's smile drops for the first time. "Aw, dude. I don't know why you felt the need to tell me that on camera." He ducks his chin down, possibly to hide his sadness from the camera. "No," he finally answers. "No, I didn't know that."

"I'm sorry," Director Sakurano says. "We didn't mean to upset you. We just… That's the moment Misaki said she started thinking there might be something wrong with Kuonji. Did you have a similar moment?"

Tsubasa shrugs. "It's hard to say when I started having doubts. I mean, it's hard not to step into a dirty van like that and not get chills. I remember thinking, 'This doesn't seem right. I shouldn't be here.' But Misaki was there. I just wanted Misaki. I was willing to put up with anything else. And so time passed and all the weird, gross shit just started to be normal. I got dragged in just like everybody else. Kuonji seemed truly godlike sometimes, like he knew exactly what you were thinking. He knew all your deepest insecurities, could tap into your darkest desires. He knew it all. It's easy to get swept away. But I think things started to turn for me when he hit her on the farm."

Tsubasa tells the story and it's clear to Sakurano again that Kuonji took some joy out of hitting Misaki. All of them were victims at some point, but he really relished hitting Misaki. Once he'd started, he didn't stop.

When Tsubasa finishes his story, he's leaning fully against the back of the arm chair. He looks smaller than he did before the question, his face reserved and withdrawn. Then he grins.

"Why? When did you start to think he was off his rocker?"

Misaki declines to show her scar to the camera.

"It's not particularly sexy," she says with a laugh, but the topic obviously makes her uncomfortable so Sakurano immediately drops it.

"That's fine," he says. "Do you feel comfortable talking about that night?"

"The last one?"

Sakurano nods sagely.

She shrugs, keeping her eyes on the carpeted floor.

Her apartment is modest but clean. The walls are bare, the furniture dull, nothing particularly outstanding or personal in immediate view. There is one photograph in a frame that sits on the coffee table: one of her, thoroughly bandaged, with her arm around Tsubasa. They are standing outside of what looks like a hospital on a sunny day. When Sakurano asked, she told him that they took the picture after she was released from medical care, a week after the infamous night. The night he was asking about now.

"Did you know that day that things were coming to a boil?" Sakurano asks, always starting with a more abstract question to ease interviewees into the memory. "Did you have any inkling that things would turn out the way they did?"

Misaki laughs humorlessly. "Did I know that my 'family' members would end up dead? No." She shakes her head but looks at the camera head-on. "But we all knew Kuonji was on edge. He'd been acting crazier and crazier as time went on, so by the time that night rolled around, we were all holding our breaths waiting for the other shoe to drop. And Luna dropped it. Of course she did.

"I mean, we all knew Mikan was in love. We met the guy and because Kuonji didn't like him, we didn't like him. But Mikan liked him. And maybe we should've known then, the night she first brought him around, that things were never going to be the same. I would say he cursed us all, but it wasn't his fault. He didn't know what we were. Hell, we didn't know what we were back then."

"What you were?" Sakurano prompts, leaning forward on his chair.

"A cult."

Ibaragi Nobara's apartment is a little bigger than Misaki's. She is eager enough to comply with the interview, excited to participate and share her story.

But her toddler is demanding, so she takes frequent breaks, and sometimes has no choice but to stop in the middle of an anecdote to go and make her lunch or find her favorite toy.

They do not film Hana. Nobara explicitly forbids them from it.

"She doesn't remember," she explains. "And I don't want her to ever be associated with that mess again."

The interview goes smoothly, even given the endless breaks and Hana's screeching cries. Nobara is forthcoming and honest. She gives long, descriptive answers and is polite as she sits by her dining room table.

Unlike Misaki's apartment, Nobara's home is a little messy, the floor covered with her child's toys, a blanket mussed on the couch. There's framed pictures of Hana all over the walls. Nobara drinks tea and even offers some to the documentary crew. She wears a knit sweater to suit the cold weather.

"I'm sorry if this is impertinent," Sakurano asks. "But do you know who Hana's father is?"

Nobara's smile flickers on her face. She looks away from the camera and Sakurano knows instantly that this question will not be included in the final cut. "I'd prefer not to answer that," she says somberly. "It's just not relevant to the cult."

"No worries," he replies. He wonders if any of his questions are relevant. What he really wanted when he sought out the old Kuonji House cult members was to paint a more intimate picture of them, to show that they were more than just a group of drugged up, violent thugs who were destined to knife each other. After that fateful June night, the papers labeled them crooks, delinquents, menaces, criminals. Sakurano wants to let them tell their own stories, to show them for what they were: victims. Victims of a charming megalomaniac.

As Misaki said: just kids.

The media had done a good job twisting the facts of the case to paint the members as being just as deranged as their leader, resulting in Kuonji being somewhat martyred by them as a result. Those violent, addicted losers lost their minds and started running around stabbing each other. Kuonji died, never mind that he had been the villain in each one of these people's stories.

Sakurano wants to share the truth of what really happened that night. These people weren't Manson girls. They weren't stoners or drug addicts. They didn't lose their minds. Everything they did that night was in self defense.

But maybe, in his attempt to bring them justice, he has been crossing lines left and right.

He hesitates for a moment, flipping through his notebook to find a decent and non-invasive question. Then Nobara reaches over and pats his hand. Her own fingers are warm from where they'd been pressed against the hot tea mug. When he looks up at her she smiles.

"Thank you for doing this," she says earnestly. "We really appreciate it."

He smiles back.

This documentary is about them, he decides. Anything they want omitted shall be omitted. This is their chance to tell their story, and as such they should have complete control over how it's told. For once, they could be given at least that much.

There are many potential subjects. Kuonji's House-so named because "family" was too deeply associated with another cult and because the group had been squatting in a house at the end-certainly wasn't the biggest cult in history, but it had a number of unique members who all played some sort of role in the group.

Hijiri Youichi's family has refused to allow the documentary crew anywhere near their son, insisting that he had been kept under Kuonji's spell for far too long and shouldn't ever have to return. Sakurano fully understood, but was naturally a little disappointed to lose such an interesting perspective for his documentary.

Youichi has only recently been reunited with his family and has been in heavy counseling for a year and a half. He deserves to sever himself from the cult.

The illusive "Megane" disappeared shortly after that fateful night. His true name was never revealed to the public and he is nearly impossible to find. Sakurano can only assume he is doing his best to rebuild his life, so he won't intrude where he obviously isn't welcome.

Tono Akira is the fourth member to respond to his inquiry. He agrees to meet, but only in public. It's inconvenient, but Sakurano sticks by his decision to pursue this documentary on the victims' terms.

The crew spends an extra forty-five minutes on sound because Tono chose a windy park in the middle of January. He explains himself as soon as the camera and mic are set up.

"I've been living with my family," he says. "My real family. They've been taking care of me. We're rebuilding our relationship after all these years. It's been a bit of a ride, but we're getting there. I can't have all you in there, though. Too many extended family members. Kids and stuff. There's just not enough room for you."

Tono's story is tragic, one of desperation and lies. Kuonji took advantage of the fact that Tono was drug dependent and not receiving full support from his family. In no time at all, he was under Kuonji's thumb, aspiring to be just like him. The fact that he's devoting his time now to rebuilding his bond with his parents and siblings is inspiring. Sakurano can't help but be impressed.

"I still miss them," Tono confesses. His cheeks are red from the cold, but maybe they redden slightly more as he says the words, because his eyes cast down too, avoiding the intense stare of the camera lens. "I think about them all the time. Tsubasa, Megane, Misaki, Mikan, Kuonji. I still even think of him, you know? Like, I wonder what he was thinking. Was there a way to get through to him? Could I have changed what happened if I did something differently? But mostly I just feel angry. Why the fuck did I go with him that day? Why did I think he was so cool? That I wanted to be him? Why did I waste so many years sitting around in a circle, getting high, living my life surrounded by garbage?" He sighs. He finally looks back at the camera. "I don't know what else you need to hear, but maybe I should start heading back."

Sakurano insists on shaking his hand and has Tono promise to keep his number. "I want you guys to be the first to see the doc," he explains. "I need your approval on this before I release it anywhere else."

Tono laughs. "Does anyone still care about Kuonji House in the first place?"

They do, and for all the wrong reasons.

Groups of tourists travel down that dark street. Where once there were dilapidated houses of all sorts, an unsafe and impoverished neighborhood populated by criminals and addicts and down-on-their luck types of all kinds, there is a new bustling series of cult-themed shops. The house they notoriously squatted in during their last months as a group is now available for touring. You can get a t-shirt with Kuonji Teru's face on it. I VISITED THE KUONJI HOUSE AND ALL I GOT WAS STABBED.

The convenience store is still there, but a great deal of effort had gone into keeping the fact that the deaths had happened there a secret. People walk in and get their cigarettes and snacks, completely oblivious to the fact that people had stabbed each other to death right under their feet.

Last June, for the first anniversary since it happened, people dressed in hoodies and ripped jeans, made vague social media posts about the size of their hearts, trended the hashtag #whatugonnadostabme, joked about the victims. Like it was a holiday, like it was a parade. Like it wasn't a terrible tragedy.

"They will," Sakurano promises. "We will make them care."

Even though she was one of the first to agree to an interview, she's one of the last that Sakurano goes to visit. He'd be lying if he didn't admit that he's scared. Her injury was possibly the most minimal of the evening, but a broken wrist really can't compare to being stabbed, so it might be foolish to try. Regardless, she is fully healed by now, and locked away in a medium security prison.

Her response to his initial letter (which had detailed the objective of his project as well as stressing the focus of letting the former members lead the conversation) had been surprisingly enthusiastic. Of all the former members, he had thought she'd be the least likely to cooperate.

Please visit whenever you like, Sakurano-san. I'd be grateful for the company and I very much would like to tell my side of the story.

Sakurano is happy to have her consent to interview. She is certainly one of the more mysterious, enigmatic members, the most easily vilified, the one who gets slammed in the media almost as much as the "Scorned Lovers," described as nothing more than a jealous woman. A crazy woman who took Kuonji's advances too seriously, who refused to share. Sakurano wants to hear her side, to ask her questions and try to crack the code of Koizumi Luna.

Security in the prison is thorough. They pat him and all the doc crew down. He only brings the camera and sound guy with him, so they can film and record her without superfluous visitors. The warden leads them through the building once security clears them, down to the "rec room," where they will be interviewing Luna.

Most of the former cult had to pay legal consequences for their illegal actions. There'd been the nagging question of who all was involved in kidnapping Youichi, but it was eventually decided that only Kuonji and Luna were present to take him. The rest of them merely thought he was Luna or Nobara or Tono's son. Discussions about his parentage were frowned upon by Kuonji, who insisted that ownership was a sin. Many deals were made regarding the drug use, squatting, and reported shoplifting. Eventually those minor charges were cleared so the lawyers could focus on the heavier crimes of attempted murder, assault, actual murder, and even sexual assault.

"Well, usually in cult cases like this," one of the lawyers Sakurano had interviewed had said. Sakurano was lucky to get a defense attorney involved in the case. "With a charming leader like Kuonji, we're talking about something called a cult of personality-that is, they're not sacrificing animals to the devil or anything. They just view this guy-Kuonji-as godlike, a reincarnation, maybe, or the only one who truly understands God, something like that. As a result, whatever he says is law. They listen to his every order. It's not just that they feel obligated to do as he says, but they're desperate for his approval, to please him. So when the time comes to assess damages, sexual assault simply can't be ruled out, particularly when you have the forced marriage that all of the members recounted."

But the details of the final verdicts were kept sealed and the media was prohibited from viewing them. So the question of what exactly the others were found not guilty of and what Luna was convicted of remain a mystery. Besides, that's not what Sakurano is here for. He only wants Luna's side of the story, not to dig into the legal side of things.

He sits down at the metal table and the two-person crew starts getting their limited equipment ready under the nervous scrutiny of the warden, who stands straight by the door. Sakurano checks his tape-recorder, an extra guarantee that Luna's words do not get lost if anything goes wrong. The crew tells him they're ready right before the doors open and guards escort Koizumi Luna into the room.

She wears her uniform and handcuffs, but she's not otherwise bound. She bows politely to him, smiles, and takes her seat across the table from him.

"Koizumi-san, thank you for meeting me," Sakurano begins, taking his own seat again. She only smiles wider in response. "Did you want to get started?" She nods quietly and he continues. "Alright, well, let's start with the beginning. How did this all start? You were the first to join the cult, so how did you-"

She holds up a hand, her smile twisting from its original polite state to something slightly sinister. Sakurano wants to believe he's just imagining it.

"I'm sorry, I must have misheard you. Did you say 'cult'?"

Sakurano nods.

Luna's smile entirely withers. "Well, that's not entirely accurate, so we'll start there instead. In fact, I'd say it's not accurate at all. Kuonji is not God. He was never God. He's not a higher power, or a lower power. He's not a deity or a feeling or something bigger than the rest of us." She shakes her head insistently. "He's just a man. And we all knew it. None of us thought Kuonji was God. If any of those pathetic murderers told you differently, it's just because they want an excuse for what they did. They killed people. Isn't it much more convenient to claim you were doing the will of God? That you were manipulated? That you were coerced? That he was some sort of abusive villain? Rather than admit that you're nothing more than a crazy psycho freak?"

Sakurano blinks in surprise but he tries not to convey his shock. "You wanted to kill in his name, didn't you? What makes you different?"

Luna grins again. "I'm not different," she stresses. "I'm almost the same as them, but I love him more. I would never hurt him. That's why I said, he's just a man. Men aren't gods. You can never love a perfect thing. Then it's not love. It's just… infatuation. Something small like that. But I loved him. Kuonji was a man. He was flawed. Some might even say evil. But if he wasn't, nobody would've loved him. I've been angry with him. He's broken my heart. He's devastated me. That's why I love him. I thought we all did, but apparently not. They thought he was something he wasn't and when they turned out to be wrong, they STUCK HIM FULL OF HOLES!" She screams the last words, banging her fists on the metal table, her eyes red and watery.

The warden nods at a guard to take her back, but Sakurano isn't done quite yet. He shakes his head slightly at the warden, who sighs but allows it.

"They say the store was flooded with blood that night," Luna whispers, almost inaudibly. "They say all four people's blood mixed together so high it touched the ceiling. Of course, that's silly." She giggles. "That didn't happen. It just feels like it did. But if you ask me, one little girl didn't bleed enough. Why is love only suitable for the kind and good?" She shakes her head again in dismay. "Why can't the wrong have love? Why can't the jealous have love? Why can't I? My love isn't any less pure, any less unconditional, any less all-consuming, any less selfless than theirs. But the kind and good get to have love, and I don't. I have to be alone."

She starts to sob, burying her head in her hands and then sinking slowly against the table. Sakurano suddenly realizes how small she is. Her narrow shoulders tremble with the force of her crying, her tiny hands barely support her head. Her uniform is baggy on her.

She is just a woman, he realizes. A deranged, obsessed woman, sure, but there is still something sad about her.

She cries and the warden rolls his eyes. But Sakurano doesn't. He reaches out his hand and places it on her wrist, the one that was never damaged. His fingers brush the metal of her handcuffs, but he focuses on the feel of her warm skin instead, the part that isn't confined.

"It must be hard," he says gently. "To lose somebody you love. To feel like you're the only one who cares that he's gone."

Luna peers up at him, her eyes and cheeks rosy and damp. She nods. "It's so hard. I-Some days I don't know if I can take it."

"You can rebuild. That love you have isn't wrong. One day you'll meet somebody who loves you too, who will take every ounce of that love Kuonji took for granted."

"He didn't-"

"It's okay, Koizumi-san," Sakurano states firmly. "You'll be okay. It's so hard, but it will get a little easier every day. You just have to trust time, trust that it will slowly heal you. You will be okay. I promise."

Luna bends her head down and cries more. After a few minutes, she is willing to talk more about what happened, particularly the night of the murders, detailing her own jealousies and insecurities. Now, when she speaks to him, her demeanor is different. She speaks like she's talking to a friend, like he understands her. He is relieved, but also terrified by the prospect that these people that he's interviewing were drawn to Kuonji for the same reason: they felt like he understood them. He doesn't want Luna potentially clinging to him in a similar way. At least she's locked up.

Sakurano decides to cut the footage from the beginning of their meeting. Luna already has a rather sinister reputation in the media. It would do her no good to show her screaming and incoherent with grief, proving the headlines right. He wants to do right by her, to portray her as the cooperative and engaging young woman he talked with after she had a nice cry.

No, Luna is certainly not a kind or good person, as she herself admitted. But she is human, and there is much more to her than Sakurano has ever heard before.

Hyuuga Natsume refuses to be interviewed. He is the one Sakurano is perhaps most excited to hear from, so when he receives the letter back saying, Fuck you and your documentary too, he is disappointed. Still, he can't interview him without consent, so he tries again, reiterating that he would be in control of how he's presented, that the doc aims to right the wrongs the media has done in terms of Kuonji House portrayal.

The response this time is a little more civil.

I don't want to be in your documentary. I wasn't in Kuonji House to begin with and I never even wanted to be affiliated with them. If you put me in a Kuonji House doc, then I will be. No thanks. I don't care what other people think so I have no reason to answer your little questions. Good luck on your project, asshole.

Sakurano tries again after that but this time he receives no response. He considers ambushing him at the grocery store or something, but even that would be too far for him. He's a documentarian, not a stalker.

But Hyuuga Natsume's role in the story is vague, unclear. There are only rumors of what happened that night-reportedly in the Kuonji House, but those in the know are familiar with the convenience store-with him and Sakura Mikan.

Sakurano has seen the security footage. It's grainy and laggy, but the events are clear. A man-Natsume-entering the store, clutching his side, running to the counter. Two men follow after him, each armed with a knife. They charge him and chase him for a few minutes until Natsume is clearly attacked with a knife and a woman-Sakura Mikan-enters the store. She fights off one of the men until Natsume is unclearly seen doing something to him. The police report said that Hyuuga Natsume stabbed Serio Rei in the throat, letting him bleed to his death. The footage is a mess. The pixelated events are so grainy that you could even be mistaken into thinking Natsume's just giving him a half-hug.

After Rei is stabbed, Kuonji comes around and stands by Mikan. They talk for a while and even seem to embrace at some point until Kuonji does something to cause her to keel over. The police report claims that this is when she is stabbed. After this, they get into a violent kerfuffle and knock over entire shelves until Mikan stabs him-just like the report says-over and over and over and over again, lifting up the knife and slamming it down repeatedly. She seems to be screaming something, but there's nothing in the report about that. Then she sits against the freezer doors and that's that.

There is no hint as to what led to Natsume entering the store, where he'd been injured, what they were fighting about, what Mikan was screaming-all of it is a mystery. All of it is something Natsume could share in an interview.

Instead, people in the media have resorted to fiction. Luna had been openly angry about the events of that night prior to her conviction. She would scream at news-reporters that Mikan was a slut, a two-timer who didn't deserve Kuonji's affections. The media took those claims and ran with them, reporting that Mikan, Kuonji's girlfriend, had cheated on him with another man, Hyuuga Natsume. Desperate to be together, Mikan and Natsume concocted a scheme to trap and kill Kuonji, who acted in self-defense. The tabloids called them the "Scorned Lovers: Forbidden to be Together, Desperate to Try."

Nevermind that the justice system had decided that Kuonji was the attacker here, that the police reports all contradicted those findings. It was the more titillating story, so it's the one that circulated the media, the story that the general populace ended up believing.

But apparently Natsume doesn't mind that.

Sakurano wishes he would, a little, just for the sake of his interview, of setting the record straight. But he also understands that an event like this has a tendency to stain. Some people want to clear their names. Some people want to scrub the spot free of dirt. And some people just want to move on.

He has enough interviews anyway, and those combined with the limited convenience store footage he's legally allowed to show, in addition to the information supplied by police reports, the attorney's account, and a cult expert's professional opinion, his documentary is shaping up to be a good one, one that will finally free the Kuonji House victims of undue criticism.

'Cause when I dream, it's you I see.

The stupid clerk got fired. That should have been entirely understandable. Apparently the guy had gotten a girlfriend and had started a habit of ditching work to go and see her. Since he was the only one working the graveyard shift, he thought no one would catch him. Mistakenly, he'd convinced himself that he'd locked the store up, but he'd failed to actually do so a number of times, including that one fateful night that he'd come back from his date to find the store covered in blood, four apparently dead people lying among the aisles.

Natsume didn't think the guy would've saved anyone's life with his presence or anything, but it sure would've been handy if he'd been there from the start.

Lucky for him, though, Shouda had heard him from the other side of the door. She'd called her buddies at the police station and they'd immediately come to the scene. The problem was that they didn't exactly know where the scene was since Natsume had fled the building and his apartment didn't have security cameras. As a result, they stuck around, mostly on Shouda's insistence, until they got a call from a dumb teenage clerk that there were four dead bodies at his store right across the street. They were able to respond immediately, and so Natsume somehow managed not to bleed out all the way and die from his injuries.

Now all he had to remember that night by were some nasty scars on his abdomen and arm, where he'd gotten stabbed.

He remembered coming to in the hospital, feeling groggy and dry, only to be assaulted by Ruka and Aoi's flailing arms and their desperate wails of relief that he was finally awake. He'd had a significant blood transfusion. They'd even asked Aoi to give some, which she readily did, to help keep him not dead.

"So that's why I feel so stupid all of sudden," Natsume had commented when she'd bragged about sacrificing herself for him. "I've got your blood in me."

Aoi slapped his arm in knee-jerk indignation, but she pulled away just as fast, her hands covering her mouth in shocked guilt. "I'm sorry! Are you okay?"

He exhaled steadily. It hurt to do so. He remembered that he had initially quit smoking because the chance of this-of his sister and best friend worrying about him-was so unacceptable that sleep was a fine sacrifice to make.

Mikan-the virus, not the girl-had apparently been enough to overpower even that impulse.

"Where is she?"

"Who?" Aoi asked.

Ruka smiled wearily at her side. "I'm not sure," he replied. "We've been here all along, just hoping you'd wake up. It was kind of touch-and-go for a bit there."

"Is she even alive?" Natsume asked instead, because that was probably the better question.

Ruka averted his gaze, suddenly very intrigued with the tiled floor of the hospital room. "I don't know," he whispered.

"I'm sure she is," Aoi said loudly, standing up straight as if to bolster her claim. "She seems like a tough cookie. I mean if a frail smoker like you could make it, then why wouldn't a healthy girl like her?"

"Aoi-chan," Ruka scolded.

"What?" Aoi seemed unashamed. "I'm trying to cheer him up."

The two of them went back and forth like that for a while. Natsume wasn't sure for how long. He stopped paying attention pretty quickly.

Was she in the same hospital? Was she being operated on? Was she in a bed like him, waking up, only to find herself alone? Was she alone? If she was here, Natsume needed to know, so he could agonizingly pull himself to his feet and trudge through the halls until he found her room so he could see her.

But everytime he closed his eyes, he saw vivid crimson, little splatters of blood across the insides of his eyelids, stains he would never be able to reach. He could see her smile-something that was meant more for him than for her, and he couldn't help but resent her for it-and the steady flow of blood from her stomach and the red all over her face and part of him was so certain he would never see her again.

What were the chances that they both made it out of that mess alive?

Nowadays he was uninterested in discussing the cult.

If anybody ever asked, his response was simple: he was involved with Mikan, not with Kuonji. He never wanted to have anything to do with that monster, and he wasn't about to start now. And he'd never been friends with the rest of the cult either. Even Tsubasa had been nothing more than a guest in his home.

The man himself had come to visit him, maybe two days after he woke up.

He'd popped up in the doorway and hissed, "Surprise!"

"Why are you talking like that?" Natsume asked him.

"Sorry," Tsubasa answered in a normal tone of voice. "I thought maybe you were sleeping."

"Nope."

"I came to check on you. How are you holding up?"

Natsume ignored that question, because it was stupid. How was he? Bad. There was no point discussing it. No words could change how he was feeling. Except, maybe… "Do you know?" he asked. "If Mikan is alive?"

Tsubasa blinked in surprise. "They never told you?"

Natsume's stomach dropped, and he had a feeling he knew what the answer was already. "Nevermind," he said dismissively. "I don't care." I don't want to know.

"She's kinda in a coma for now," Tsubasa replied anyway. "They, uh, operated for a while. But she lost a lot of blood. They don't know if she's gonna make it."

Natsume blinked, trying to get rid of the stupid wetness in his eyes. It was itchy. "I said I don't care," he reiterated, keeping his eyes fixed on his blankets instead of on the other man.

Being trapped in the hospital-ceaselessly bed-bound-was infuriating. He felt trapped, confined, imprisoned. He couldn't imagine living like this by choice, stuck in one place forever, never moving. Well, maybe he could imagine it. But he'd nearly died. He didn't want to live like that anymore.

But the one person who had changed that was nearly dead herself. How was he supposed to fix anything if she was gone?

"You should go," Natsume told Tsubasa. "I'm sure there's somewhere you need to be."

"I've been spending pretty much all my time here," Tsubasa mused, ignoring him. "I've been with Misaki. She had an operation of her own. She'd been stabbed. In the arm. It was awful. She bled a lot. I was really scared that I'd lost her for good. That she was never gonna come back."

"Can you leave already?"

"But she pulled through. She's up right now. She's fine. I can talk to her. See her smile."

"Go."

"She's sleeping right now, which is why I'm here. I just wanted you to know that Misaki and Mikan are made of the same stuff. If Misaki made it, so will Mikan. I promise."

Natsume narrowed his eyes. "Misaki was stabbed in the arm, you said?"

Tsubasa nodded.

"Mikan was stabbed in the gut. In her organs. She bled out. If the doctors aren't sure-if she's in a fucking coma-then what good is a fucking 'can-do' attitude? What the fuck does it matter that she never gives up if she isn't even awake? Are you fucking stupid? Misaki is alive because she got knicked. Mikan is going to die."

His head collapsed against the pillows again. A little stream of tears was crawling down his cheeks and his body was too heavy to keep sitting. He didn't want to sit anymore. He didn't want to talk anymore. He just wanted to sleep.

He wanted to sleep forever.

"I'm sorry," Tsubasa said, his voice hushed again. "I'm so fucking sorry."

Natsume didn't hear him leave, but when he looked up again, he was gone.

He didn't see him again, but he did see him on the news from time to time. He was one of the most reviled members of the House, as they were now called, mostly because he fit the mold pretty well of an upbeat and charismatic killer. Even after that night he was still grinning, still winking. It seemed like he wasn't taking any of it seriously, so the headlines started lying about him, speculating that Tsubasa of all people was the actual mastermind behind it all, that he had planned the events of that night, and had even spearheaded Kuonji's demise in a desperate grab for power. It was all pretty contrived.

Pretty fucking stupid.

The media was a bunch of morons. All the journalists and news commentators and late night show hosts suddenly felt qualified to rant about that night, about the people responsible.

Natsume's own name passed their lips way too often for his liking, but always joined with Mikan's. It was rare to hear someone mention him without bringing her up right after. It was a stupid story they'd made up, but Natsume didn't mind it so much because after he heard "Hyuuga Natsume and Sakura Mikan," he stopped listening.

He'd hear those words and think of their visit to urgent care.

"Together would be nice," Mikan had said.

"She takes very good care of you, Hyuuga-san."

Hyuuga Natsume and Sakura Mikan.

She took care of him a little too well, in the end. No amount of begging her to leave him alone was enough to keep her away, either. There was no avoiding this outcome.

She had tricked him into keeping her heart. He still wasn't sure where she'd hidden it, even after all this time and all his searching, but it was his. Probably in his apartment somewhere, holed away, seeping into his walls. Was that what Kuonji had torn up his place looking for? If he couldn't find it, there was no way Natsume could. He would just have to let it rot on its own forever.

And she'd stolen his too, maybe on accident. It was a small thing. It might've gotten caught on the sleeve of her hoodie while she'd stayed with him. It definitely wasn't with him anymore though.

It was too late to ask for it back.

Together would be nice.

He was alone.

It wasn't her heartbeat that she heard, but the simulacrum.

The beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep of the machine beside the bed.

It made sense that she wouldn't hear her own heart anyway. It was far away, safe, hopefully.

When she opened her eyes, they were already wet. The force of her eyelids fluttering open dispelled the tears, casting them down so they slid down her face onto the pillow. The first sound she made was a sputtered cry, the beginning of a throaty sob. For thirty minutes she couldn't speak. She just cried. She cried more when she saw violet eyes and a flash of black and then her cries were muffled in the angular shoulder of her best friend, still dressed in her very best tweed even in a hospital.

She knew Hotaru was speaking, but she couldn't understand a word she'd said.

Her own mind was too cluttered with her own anxieties and worries to properly make sense of someone else's. So she lay there, in her bed, staring at Hotaru as she asked question after question, all incomprehensible and thus unanswerable, until she watched her mouth shut.

"You're probably tired," Hotaru said. Her eyes were gleaming, shining with unshed tears. "I don't want to further exhaust you."

"What are you doing here?" Mikan finally asked, letting one worry go and float above them like a balloon.

Hotaru shook her head in surprise. "Why wouldn't I be here?"

"But… your school…"

"Will wait a hundred years for me if I ask them to. My best friend needed me, so I couldn't be in France, now could I? As soon as I got into contact with that Ando person, I booked a flight."

"You talked to Tsubasa?"

"Yes," Hotaru huffed with a roll of her eyes. "He's an idiot. A complete moron. But he was worried about you, and so was I. He had a plan for finishing Kuonji off, once and for all."

Mikan swallowed and it felt like swallowing acid. "Sorry for ruining your plans."

"What are you talking about?"

"What was it supposed to be? Tricking him? Calling the cops?"

"We were gonna implicate him in the kidnapping of Hijiri Youichi as well as the forced seizure of several minors, if we could get some of your friends to cooperate. If we got enough testimonies, it could turn the case in our favor. But, the plan doesn't really mean much now since-"

"Since I killed him instead."

There was a beat of silence.

"Mikan, come on-"

"If I'd left it up to you, he'd be in prison. He'd be alive."

"But that mess you're in love with wouldn't be," Hotaru said firmly. "Don't you get it? You did what you had to. The cameras caught all of it. No court of law in their right mind would convict you of any crime."

"Usually when people act in self defense, they stab the person one time," Mikan corrected harshly. "You know, like Natsume did. One time. To do what you have to do. The bare minimum. To stop the person. I stabbed him a lot, Hotaru."

"Twenty-six times," Hotaru muttered, almost to herself.

"Twenty-six?!" Mikan whimpered, cradling her head in her hands. "Twenty six?! Are you kidding me? There's no way they'd count that as self-defense."

"No," Hotaru agreed solemnly. "It might've started out that way, but that was a rage-killing, by definition. A crime of passion."
"Rage," Mikan echoed, letting her voice drift off with the word. It was a fitting word. She still felt the shape of it in her ribcage, biting her every breath.

"But I've already been thinking it over, that the history of abuse that you and your friends faced justifies even twenty-six stab wounds. In fact, I'd say twenty-six isn't enough. Not by half."

Mikan startled, jumping up in the bed, ignoring the twist of pain jolting through her abdomen as a result. "Where's Natsume? Is he okay? I almost forgot-"

Because for some reason, she felt like she'd just seen him, safe and sound. Maybe she'd dreamt of him. She probably had, and for a long time. And all the while, he could've been dead.

"He's alive," Hotaru answered curtly. "Ando told me."

"Is he okay?"

A shrug.

"Can I see him?"

"I think they sent him home."

"Did he come see me?"

Hotaru shrugged again.

"Does he want to see me?"

Hotaru blinked at her, arms straight down at her sides. "Mikan…"

"Because I'm the reason this all happened to him anyway. I wouldn't blame him if he didn't want anything to do with me anymore. Because of me, he got stabbed. He nearly died. And it's all my fault. If I'd just left him alone like he'd wanted from the start, then none of this would have happened and he could've been happy-"

"I'm gonna stop you right there," Hotaru cut in, waving her hand in front of Mikan's face. "Because you're annoying me. That loser was not happy before you. I know all about him, Hyuuga Natsume. I know what his apartment looks like. I know how many friends he has-almost none. I know what he did for fun-nothing. I know the level of fulfillment he had in his life before he met you, and that's zero. I don't know for sure if you made him happy, Mikan, but he definitely wasn't happy before you and he wouldn't be without you, either. What I do know, for sure, is that he said he cared about you. He was worried about you. That's why he went along with so many of my plans, even if they put him in danger. Because he wanted you to be okay. He wouldn't have done that if he really wanted to be left alone."

Mikan stared deep into Hotaru's eyes. "I guess so," she conceded, but her heart was still heavy. Natsume left. He'd gone. He had probably had enough of her by now. It was time to leave him alone, for good, so that he never got hurt like that again. "But you're right," she added, letting herself lie back down. "I am tired."

"Alright. Get some sleep. I'll try to be here when you wake up."

"Thanks."

Mikan could feel Hotaru's cool hand pet her hair once before the touch was gone. A cold tear followed its friends down her face. Her wound, in her gut, ached, thrumming with pain. But even that was nothing compared to the piercing agony of the empty space where her heart used to be, severing itself completely from the thumping organ still safely stowed away in Natsume's home.

The following day, she was greeted with her old friends: Anna, Nonoko, and Yuu, all of whom were happy to see her alive but sad to hear of what her life had been for the past couple years. They'd traveled all the way across Japan to see her, leaving their hometown just to check in on her. According to Hotaru, they had all dropped everything as soon as she'd called them.

"We were so worried about you," they'd each said about a thousand times, reaching ceaselessly for her finger, as if to prove to themselves that she was real and in front of them, not just a figment of their imagination.

Mikan felt a pang of guilt about that. She'd left them all behind when she'd joined Kuonji. Calling Hotaru as often as she did was one thing: she could keep up the lie forever if Hotaru was in France the whole time, unable to tell fact from fiction. But she'd known that her other friends would ask to meet her new roommates, and that they'd know instantly that something was wrong. Wasn't it strange how she'd known from the beginning, deep down, that something wasn't right with Kuonji? And yet she'd still stuck around, hanging onto his every word, as if every single syllable was dripping with gold.

She'd sacrificed quite a lot, just to end up in the hospital with blood on her hands.

Soon after those friends left, Tsubasa came by. He'd hugged her for a long time, for what felt like hours, and she breathed deeply into his coat, smelling him and reminding herself that he was alive, that Kuonji hadn't managed to get his hands on him.

"You're still here," she whispered, mostly to herself, and he laughed in response. He could laugh all he wanted, but she'd been terrified. In his absence, she'd been driven half-mad with worry.

They said very little to each other. There was no need for words after everything they'd been through. He told her shortly that Misaki was just fine, all patched up and already discharged. Natsume was alive, though apparently not in good spirits. Mikan didn't think she'd ever known him to be in good spirits, so maybe that was alright. Luna had been arrested. The rest of them had been heavily questioned and Mikan was probably next.

Kuonji and Persona were dead.

But he didn't tell her that last part because she already knew.

Instead he just hugged her and when the hugging was over, he wiped her tears away and kissed her on the head and murmured, "You've always been like a sister to me," and Mikan nodded because she was moved beyond words and she hoped desperately that he'd understand what she meant by that.

He grinned wide, his eyes teary too.

He understood. He always had.

Mikan got discharged a week after that. According to the doctors, she'd been in the hospital for nearly a month, what with the big operations, the short coma, and the eternal period of observation. She was lucky to be released at all.

She was nervous about where she would go.

For now, most of her friends were placed either in holding cells or in motel rooms under keen supervision because they were all being treated as suspects in a sinister and convoluted case. A police officer had gone down to lead her to her own motel room and Hotaru had to argue with him for more than an hour that Mikan was more inclined to stay with her in her nice hotel suite than to rot away in a dirty and rat-infested hellhole.

The hotel was gorgeous, decked out with the highest quality furniture and even the wallpaper seemed golden. Classical music was playing constantly in the lobby and the elevator had mirrors and a floor so clean and shiny it was practically a mirror too. Hotaru's suite was on the highest level, overlooking the city. Mikan had never seen it from this angle before and it was truly a gorgeous view.

She hated all of it.

It made her uncomfortable. For years she'd been living in squalor, as shameful as it was to admit. She wasn't used to all this glitz and glamor.

And she missed Natsume.

She'd look out the hotel window, towering high over the rest of the city, and pretend like there was a chance she'd be able to spot him if she looked hard enough. From this distance there wasn't even a chance she'd find his apartment building, let alone him.

She didn't want to worry Hotaru so she kept a smiling face whenever the sun was shining. She got back into the swing of things, talking her best friend's ear off about mundane things like snacks and the weather, getting excited over every meal, jumping up and radiating energy so Hotaru couldn't notice just how miserable she really was.

But as soon as the sun set and they were both in their beds, with Hotaru snoozing away, she'd begin to cry, silently, looking out the window at the moon, biting her lip to keep herself from making a single sound.

It wasn't just Natsume, of course. She'd committed murder. The last two years of her life had been a complete waste. Her friends had been hurt. She'd disrupted Hotaru's education with her drama. Her actions got a convenience store employee fired.

But Natsume felt like the accumulation of all that, like the sum of it. Everything revolved around him, endlessly moving around in an elliptical orbit. In the end, it always went back to him. She wanted to see him, if only to apologize, but if she really wanted to make things better, the only thing she could do was leave him alone. Deep down she was aware of that, so even though it hurt, even though she was miserable, even though every time the sun set she'd change her mind with a force so strong it could crumble the earth into a billion pieces, she stayed away.

Love was rather multifaceted, she was coming to find. Endless whiplash.

"I'd call him for you if I could," Hotaru said out of the blue one day. She'd been on her laptop, doing some schoolwork, while Mikan flipped aimlessly through the channels on the room's TV. Each day, she bided her time in waiting for the moment when the police finally asked to talk to her. She wasn't sure what she'd say, if she said anything at all, but the only reason why she was stuck here in the first place was because of that eventuality. She was under something like house arrest. She wasn't necessarily forbidden from leaving the hotel, but it certainly wasn't encouraged, and it probably wouldn't look good for her. Until she was questioned, she'd have to stay in Hotaru's hotel suite, trapped on the highest floor like a princess in a storybook, eternally looking down at the city she used to live in. Once they'd questioned her, she'd either get sent to jail or be free to go on with her life. She wasn't sure which one scared her the most.

"Who?" Mikan asked, only half interested.

"Hyuuga Natsume."

Mikan's hand froze. "Wh… Why are you bringing him up all of a sudden?"

"Because you say his name in your sleep," Hotaru replied brusquely. "After you cry yourself to sleep, that is."

Mikan's face flushed hot. "What-What are you talking about?"

"I'm not stupid, Mikan. I know you very well. I knew when you were lying about your roommates and I know you're lying now. I can tell when your smiles are fake, you know."

Mikan's hand regained feeling and she continued flipping through the channels, just so she had something to focus on.

"You miss him," Hotaru said quietly. "I'm not sure why. That man is worthless and stupid and has the spine of a gummy worm. Not to mention the bank account of a vagrant. But that doesn't change what you feel for him. I'm not sure why you're pretending, but you shouldn't. Ando-the moron-stole his phone and forgot to give it back, so I'm not sure how to contact him other than banging on his door and I'm not interested in stooping to that level. But if it would make you feel better-"

"I don't know what you mean," Mikan said emphatically. "I'm fine. Wonderful, even."

"Mikan, you killed somebody for him."

Mikan made a noise of protest.

She'd killed Kuonji for herself. She'd plunged that knife into him so many times (twenty-six, her brain supplied) because she wanted to prove to him that she didn't belong to him. She didn't want him touching her anymore. She never wanted to feel his lips on hers again, his hand on her waist, his arm draped over her neck.

His knife in her stomach.

In Natsume's.

No, maybe she had killed him for herself, but she never would've done it if he hadn't threatened Natsume. It had been for him too.

Besides, if it ever came to it again, and she hoped it never would, she probably would do it, just for him. Murder, that is. If he was really in danger, and there was no other way.

Yes, she could maybe imagine it.

"Oh, Mikan, don't cry."

She hadn't even noticed that she'd started, but now she was suddenly aware of her soaking wet face, the splotchy heat in her cheeks.

"I'll find him, okay?" Hotaru promised. "You deserve better than a loser like him, but if he's what you want, then I'll demean myself by contacting him, okay?"

Mikan nodded.

The right thing to do would be to insist that Hotaru drop it, because that was what was best for Natsume. But she wasn't in control of herself anymore. Good sense and morality meant nothing compared to that earth-shattering force. Nothing was stronger than it anymore.

Sakura Mikan is the best subject.

Sakurano will never forget the excitement he'd felt opening her letter agreeing to an interview. Yes, Sakurano-san, I'd be glad to answer some questions!

He'd been sure, after getting Natsume's rude rejection, that his alleged conspirator would have similar feelings about the documentary, but apparently not.

She is his last interviewee.

More than a year and a half after that fateful night, all charges against her have been cleared, something that the tabloid magazines never wanted to accept.

The crew sets up their equipment in the apartment Mikan shares with her friend Imai Hotaru. Said friend is gone from the place, apparently at work. It's a very nice place, but Mikan looks somewhat small against the backdrop of high quality fabrics and monotonous modern furniture. She sits on a stool and insists that Sakurano and his colleagues sit on the couch.

Sakurano can't help but scrutinize her, watching her as she fidgets while the audio crew sets up the microphone, as she makes small talk with the camera man. This is the girl that stabbed Kuonji to death in the snacks aisle of a convenience store. It's incongruous, to imagine that this sweet, smiley girl could be capable of something so violent.

He recalls vaguely what the cult expert had told him a few weeks back: something about the things people are suddenly capable of when they're pushed too hard. Cults can transform people because they ask the very worst of them, to leave every part of their former lives behind, even their morality, even their own identity, until they are unrecognizable. The unthinkable is possible.

It's Sakurano who needs to be snapped out of his reverie by his own subject. He startles on the stool and makes eye contact with her, sweet and patient, her hands folded in her lap, fingers anxiously fiddling in anticipation. "Are you ready?" she asks, and it's almost funny because he's supposed to be asking her that.

He nods and then looks down at his notebook. For some reason, all of his questions seem asinine, ridiculous. "Uhh…"

"Do you want me to talk about when I first met Kuonji?" she prompts. Sakurano nods again, looking back up at her.

She tells her tale, from beginning to end, and all he can do is sit there and listen.

She doesn't know how the night started for Natsume, when he was ambushed by Kuonji and Persona. Apparently, they hadn't talked about it since it happened. Maybe it doesn't really matter. All she knows is that when she found out Kuonji wanted to hurt him, she ran to him.

"And it's strange to think all of it started with an obsessive crush I had."

Crush seems like too light a word to describe the whole mess of events that unfolded.

Sakurano finally has a question to ask, probably something everybody in Japan who knows about this case wants to know, no matter what their opinion is on the subject. "I noticed you're living with your friend. What about Natsume? Now that everything is over, are you two together?"

Mikan blinks, her cheeks reddening. "I-Is that really… relevant?"

"You don't have to answer any question you don't want to. But it could be relevant to the viewers. All this happened, as you just said, because of your crush on him. People might be interested in knowing the state of your relationship now that things have settled down. But again, you don't have to say anything you don't want to."

"Um, well, if you think people will really care, then I guess I can answer. And no, we're not together." She is blatantly avoiding looking at the camera and at Sakurano, eyes focused on her own fingers instead. "I've been focusing on myself. I've been in therapy-counseling, for everything that happened in the past couple years. I think it would be unfair to him, even if he wanted that, to be in a relationship with a girl as messed up as me. Besides, he's working on himself too. He's a good friend. A dear friend."

She smiles widely and finally looks straight into the camera.

"Do you still love him?"

"Huh?"

"Some of the former House members claim you were in love with him. Is that true, and is it still true?"

"Now that I won't answer, thank you."

"Of course. There's no pressure. This documentary is in your control."

He asks her a few more questions, mainly about counseling and her work on rebuilding her life. It's a struggle, because of course it is, just like it is for the rest of the former cult. Some people lost two years, some ten. Some lost a few friends, some their whole families. Ando Tsubasa is living with his parents, Tono Akira is living with nearly every person he's related to. Harada Misaki makes frequent dinners with her mom, trying to reconnect after a long time. Ibaragi Nobara lives with her child, doing her best to clear the heavy burden from Hana's future. Even Koizumi Luna is trying to live better, even from behind bars.

It's easy to sit on this side of the camera, Sakurano decides. To watch a documentary like this, or to even make one. It's much harder to be in front of it, shedding your soul to an unfeeling and sometimes vicious audience that will tear you apart limb by limb for not being pure enough, apologetic enough, worthy enough. Sakurano just wants the world to look twice at these people, to rethink their prejudices. But maybe he's expecting too much. Maybe life is just destined to be hard for these people, an endless trudge uphill.

As the crew is packing up, he tells her not to throw his number away, that she and the former cult members are all invited to an exclusive first showing. It's about a month before the actual premiere. He hopes that any feedback the House can share can be fixed in that time.

"I want you to be there," he stresses. "You were so deeply involved and I want your perspective to be in the film."

"Sure," she agrees, smiling, as she has done for almost the entire interview. Sakurano is starting to understand why Kuonji called her his Girl with the Smile, why Luna called her Sunbeam.

"You can invite a friend," he suggests. "Even two." He hopes his words aren't too suggestive, but he wants her to know that Natsume is welcome, even if he declined to be in the documentary.

"I can ask," she agrees, hinting that she understands. "But I can't promise anything more than that I will be there."

"That's good enough for me."

When Mikan finally closes the door and his crew is heading back to their home base to start the newest task of editing all their footage, Sakurano tries to take a deep breath. When he's done with this film, he will be done with all of it. He can go to sleep and go back to his own life. Mikan and her friends will never be able to fully leave these scars behind.

It feels unfair.

She never called. Or visited. Or anything.

He mustered the courage and called the hospital at some point after being discharged and found that she'd been allowed to leave. So that was it.

She was alive. She'd woken up. She'd left.

He reasoned with himself that she was wounded and freshly out of a coma. She might need time to rest. To get herself together. She would come see him when she was ready. After all, he had no idea where on earth she could possibly be. If he wanted to see her, he'd have to wait.

So he did.

He waited.

He waited a whole month after her discharge before he got a sign that she didn't completely despise him for the whole mess of things. Of course, if anybody should be mad, it should be him, but for some reason he wasn't. He just wanted to see her again.

After he'd been discharged, Ruka had been concerned about his well-being, particularly his long-neglected mental health. On his insistence, Natsume had no choice but to move into that clean, pre-furnished college apartment. He was currently crashing on the couch, all his stuff from his apartment either tucked away in one of Ruka's closets, or kept in a storage unit for holding until Ruka decided he was healthy enough to live on his own again.

With Natsume's luck, he'd never get his blessing.

Aoi's weekly check-up calls became daily, and she could sometimes even monopolize his time for an hour at a time, scrambling for something to talk about just so she could keep him on the line.

When Ruka wasn't at school or at his internship, he was at home, cooking, forcing Natsume to exercise, making sure that the blinds were drawn and that the sun was soaking every inch of the place.

Sometimes Shouda would call and they even got coffee once, but it was awkward. He didn't know what to say other than to thank her for saving his life. She made a lot of promises about Mikan and her family, swearing that they'd just be questioned and then left alone for good. The police were sure that the real villains were dead, that the rest of the family were just victims of circumstance, dragged along unwittingly since their teen years and forced to live in misery and endless abuse.

"She'll be fine," Shouda promised. Natsume's instinctive reaction was to deny, to ask who she was talking about, to play dumb.

Instead he nodded. "Thanks."

Natsume was mostly normal too, for the first time in a long time. He got a formal prescription for his insomnia and got meds very similar to what Shouda had given him that night so long ago. He fell asleep at eleven at night and woke up in time for work, where he stamped documents with one hand and if a patron ever got mouthy he'd show off a scar and grit out, "This is when I got stabbed, the last time somebody tested me. But I'm alive and he's dead." That usually shut them up and he could exhale and ignore Narumi's scoldings.

It started before Mikan ever sent her friend to contact him.

It started with the clearing out of the terrible house in that disgusting neighborhood, now newly dubbed Kuonji House, their city's very own house of horrors. People had mistakenly assumed that all the deaths happened there. So some private company bought the place and turned it into something of a museum, allegedly to "honor the lives of the people who used to live here," but it was pretty clearly a cash grab.

Natsume never actually laid eyes on it, but he saw it on the news on accident and that was enough for him.

Ruka didn't like him watching the news for some reason. They had happened on that channel for only a second. Ruka flipped to the next channel quickly, talking loudly to distract from the house and the determined head of capitalism.

But Natsume really didn't care about any of it, not about the house, not about his name being randomly synonymous with murder and infamy. It didn't make a difference.

Not until Imai reached out again.

Imai left a note on his apartment door, which Shouda took down and then texted to his shitty flip phone.

Mikan would like to meet.

Then there was the name of a cafe and a date and time to meet.

Natsume ignored Ruka's proposals to tag along. He hoped Mikan wouldn't take her friend either. He never wanted to meet Imai face to face. That would probably be the day he got murdered for real and she for sure would avoid any charges.

"Just be careful," Ruka warned gently.

"She's not gonna hurt me."

"No," Ruka agreed. "But you're both wounded. Both fresh from a traumatic experience. Don't do anything rash."

Ruka had a dirty mind. Which he denied having after Natsume teased him for it.

Natsume was early by about a half hour.

She was early by twenty minutes.

When she walked into the cafe, slowly and a bit hunched over, he jumped from his chair.

Her eyes lit up when she saw him.

For the first time since he'd known her, she was wearing pretty clothes that fit her-clothes that she owned. A blouse and a skirt. No sneakers. No wine stains. No frayed hoodie.

Her face was clean and her cheeks were rosy and her hair was down, not in those weird braids.

She was beautiful.

"Mikan," he greeted.

"Natsume," she answered, face breaking into a grin.

He'd been sitting at the table for ten minutes, doing nothing, so now that she was here, they could order their coffee together.

He got an iced mocha and ignored her surprised and teasing expression. She ordered a salted caramel cold brew and he took note of that.

They sat together and drank their coffee and didn't say anything for a few minutes. They never broke eye contact.

"You know," Natsume started, after they'd already long finished their coffee. "We actually don't really know each other very well." At her alarmed and hurt expression, he backtracked. "What I mean is, we didn't actually meet very often. We haven't known each other for very long. All that stuff that happened was so huge and heavy that we-well, you know. Shared trauma and all that."

Mikan bit her lip and took a faux sip of the cup that had been empty for a while.

"What I'm trying to say is that this is our chance to start over."

Mikan smiled softly. "I thought we already did that."

"We can do it again."

She hesitated, but her hand was the first to reach over the table. "Alright. I'm Sakura Mikan. It's nice to meet you."

Natsume smiled too and took her hand with his own. "Hyuuga Natsume. Likewise."

A moment passed in silence before Mikan asked quietly, "So is this, like… our first date?"

Natsume fought the urge to nod and let this go that way.

They could.

This could be their first date. Maybe he could kiss her goodbye and they could let whatever this was between them explode and burn up and leave them in the ashes.

But it felt too delicate. And there was no real need to rush it.

"Can we wait?" he asked instead. "Let's just get to know each other first."

Mikan looked disappointed at that, and Natsume felt the same way. But they'd both been stabbed over this thing between them so recently ("two months ago," his brain argued). He knew that if he tried kissing her, he'd be scared. He'd have to look over his shoulder, just to make sure Persona wasn't lurking in the corner, that Kuonji wasn't seated at the table next to them.

She'd just fucking left a cult, for fuck's sake, and had set the whole thing on fire before walking out the door.

Taking some time was crucial.

It wasn't easy to do, but it was important.

"I understand," she replied after a moment. "But I'll be waiting."

"Me too."

He surprised her.

He said yes to seeing the documentary.

It had been nearly a year and a half since they'd agreed to just be friends. She understood why he had suggested it. She would have too, if she'd had a few days to think on it. He was just faster than her.

Nothing else between them was fast.

It all went at an excruciating trickle, a slow and creeping progress akin to watching water boil or paint dry.

She knew all his favorite movies-mostly horror, to her chagrin. She knew he was a picky eater and that he liked spaghetti more than anything. She also knew that he called all pasta spaghetti, which kind of bugged her. She knew the sounds his car made at every turn. She knew the story behind every single photo on his laptop, the ones she'd looked at without his permission. She'd watched him drag all the photos of himself back into the folders they belonged in. She insisted that he delete that gross shit folder once and for all.

She knew that he had a new folder there, with new pictures, called mikan. She had spotted it during that intervention and pretended like she didn't notice. She tried not to read into it, but just the thought of it brought a smile to her face.

She knew that he had smoked in the past, that his parents had passed away. She'd met Aoi and Ruka and made fast friends with both of them.

He and Hotaru weren't each other's biggest fans, but they both cared about her too much to make a big fuss about it.

He knew that she'd been homeless, that she'd lost her mom and her grandpa and now even her uncle. He knew that she liked seafood and fruit and that she was a creative cook, though he had simply called her "terrible" instead. He knew that she liked taking selfies now that she had her own phone again, that every time they went somewhere she'd take a billion photos of him and of them together. He knew that she liked comedies, especially when they were heartfelt. He knew she had a funny laugh and he always smiled when he heard it. He knew what not to say, which topics to stay clear of, how to change the subject.

He knew that there were parts of her old life she wasn't ready to say goodbye to because he wasn't ready either.

Once a week, they'd stay up late and go out to the city and meet in the middle between their new living spaces. They'd get donuts or chips or anything and sit on the curb of the sidewalk and talk for hours.

She'd tell him his heart was big and he'd scoff, just like he was supposed to.

They knew a lot about each other now.

What she didn't know was whether or not enough time had passed by.

Whether that ache in her chest whenever she thought of him was a sign that he'd found her heart somewhere amongst his belongings. Whether that way their eye contact would stay just a few seconds too long meant that he liked looking at her. Whether it was okay for her to lean in and kiss him on the mouth again without freaking him out and scaring him away.

She knew a lot about him, but no amount of time could teach a person how to read minds.

The first showing of the documentary took place in a small theater in the center of town. There was a little pre-showing mixer, about forty-five minutes of food and drinks to give everybody time to arrive, before the show. Then there was the after-party, where Sakurano would go around and take notes, completely sober, while everyone else was given the chance to drink and talk and eat a fully catered buffet.

Natsume agreed to come with her. The drive with Hotaru in the backseat had been awkward but in no time at all they had arrived and could keep as much distance from each other as they wanted.

Mikan saw her old friends for the first time in a long time, hugging each of them and learning what they'd been up to since leaving the house. Natsume stayed by her side but rarely said a word. She couldn't help but feel like he didn't really want to be there.

The documentary itself was… something.

Throughout the whole thing she kept her shoulder pressed against Natsume's, pretended to be very casual about it. She spotted Misaki with Tsubasa's arm around her neck. She felt a pang of envy but deep down she knew that was stupid. Those two had loved each other for a decade, waiting for permission for a moment like this.

But the documentary wasn't an easy thing to watch, and Hotaru's grasp on one hand and Natsume's on the other almost wasn't enough. She wanted to run away, dart out of the theater, take cover under a bridge somewhere, and never come back.

She hadn't actually processed that she'd be seeing those old days on the screen again, that her own suffering would be discussed so academically. People she'd never heard of would use her name, discuss the events of that night as if they knew everything about her. She heard stories she'd never known before, about Nobara and Misaki, about their parents and families, about all they'd left behind to pursue Kuonji and the promise of freedom and love and understanding.

It was uncomfortable, but also comforting, in a strange way, to see that they all felt the same way, that they'd all been waiting for the chance to escape and start healing.

Sometimes she felt very alone, waking up from nightmares that she'd used to think were sweet dreams. Hotaru wouldn't understand. Not even Natsume really got it. The only people who understood were the other people in this documentary, the people sitting by her in the theater, watching the last years of their life be told on camera. They were the only ones who remembered all the photos salvaged from the house, the locations they'd all lived in, the odd jobs they'd done, the games they'd played, the songs they sang.

The people Kuonji killed.

The way his hits felt, the sting of shame and guilt for hurting him, for disappointing him.

How his kisses felt like violence but at least if he was kissing you, he wasn't slapping you, kicking you, punching you, speaking to you like you'd messed up, tearing your guts out with his bare hands.

Nobody else understood that.

Her therapist didn't understand, but according to him it wasn't about understanding at all: it was about finding someone to support you, to hold you, to make you feel human and to remind you that you are a person and that you belong to yourself.

The showing ended and everyone flooded into the lobby for the buffet and conversation. Mikan spotted Sakurano winding throughout the crowd, asking people for their opinions on the film, taking notes for any needed changes. She was nervous for him to come around and ask her. She wasn't sure what she'd say. She didn't think there should be any changes, but there was no way she'd ever be able to watch the film again. Would saying that seem mean?

Tono had brought his whole extended family, Tsubasa his parents and sister, Misaki her mom. Luna had apparently been shown the film in prison and surprisingly hadn't had many ideas for changes. Nobara had hired a babysitter so she could stay late. The lobby was full of people, and Mikan hadn't even noticed, but she'd somehow managed to grab hold of Natsume's hand and dig her nails into his skin.

"Ow," he muttered and she tore away all at once, startled.

"Sorry!"

"It's okay." Then, "Ugh."

Sakurano was in front of them, grinning. "Well, Sakura-san? What did you think?"

Mikan swallowed. She didn't know what to say.

"It was interesting, artistically," she heard Hotaru say. She wasn't really sure where Hotaru was standing exactly. "I liked the music. Who's the composer?"

Mikan couldn't remember the music. Had there been music?

The part that stood out to her was when Sakurano interviewed one of the prosecutors-and she remembered meeting him, the severe edges of his face and the unamused expression he had carved into his eyes-who had insisted that Mikan was guilty of premeditated murder, that she'd killed Kuonji so she could be with Natsume. She recalled the part in the film when he'd gone over the crime scene, pointed to the aisle where she'd killed Kuonji and then painstakingly done the motion of stabbing somebody twenty-six times.

It seemed to go on forever.

"Do you see?" he asked the camera. "How long that took? She cut herself with the blade and kept going. She kept cutting herself and kept going. That's not self defense. There's nothing noble in that."

She knew that Sakurano had challenged his statements with his own questions, that they had seemed smart in the moment, but now Mikan couldn't remember what they were. All she remembered was that long moment where the prosecutor raised his arms and then let them crash down forcefully over and over and over again.

She couldn't hear anything anymore and the only thing she could see was red, the color of Kuonji's blood, the color of Natsume's pretty eyes. She could feel Natsume try to take her hand again, but it was suddenly too hot in the theater.

"Excuse me," she heard herself say and then she was outside on the street, alone in the dark. She collapsed onto the ground and it was just like the good old days, when the dirt and scum of the streets didn't bother her. She breathed deeply and exhaled the cold air, watching it float away from her. It was hers until it wasn't anymore. Then she'd breathe in anew and that was hers too, until it wasn't.

Nothing was permanent.

"Mikan?"

Except for Natsume.

"I'm okay," she mumbled. "I'm sorry, I don't know what came over me-"

"Why are you apologizing?"

"I didn't mean to cause a scene-"

"You didn't."

"It was a nice documentary."

"It was fine," Natsume retorted. Mikan felt herself chuckle. Of course he'd find some fault in it.

"Did you tell Sakurano what he could fix?" she asked. "Maybe he can make it better. It was a nice movie. I liked the music. And the… font."

"The movie doesn't matter."

"It was so nice of him," Mikan sobbed. She fell lower on the ground, her hands cold and wet where they met the sidewalk. It was a cold night and she'd left her jacket inside, but her skin was still burning hot across her shoulders and arms. It was just her hands that were cold. "Everybody assumes the worst of us, that we wanted Kuonji dead, that we wanted to kill. And Sakurano-san went out of his way to tell our stories-That's so nice."

"It's nice," Natsume conceded. "But you don't have to talk about it. You don't have to watch it."

"It's not fair."

"He'll get over it."

"No, I mean…" Mikan sniffled, and then fell all the way, letting herself sit right on the sidewalk, even in her nice pretty dress that Hotaru helped her pick out for this very occasion. "I killed him, Natsume. He's not alive anymore. And now we'll never know his story, why he did all that."

"Who cares? He was a monster."

"That's what people say about me," Mikan rebuffed. "About us. They say we're monsters. That we killed him, just so we could be together."

Natsume didn't reply then. He stayed quiet.

"And they're right!" Mikan was smiling but she didn't feel happy. It wasn't an unfamiliar feeling. "I killed Kuonji for a lot of reasons, but the truth is that if I hadn't met you, I wouldn't have thought about any of them."

"Mikan…"

"I didn't mean for it to sound like that. I don't blame you. You acted in self defense when you killed Persona. That was just one stab. You know? You killed him and it was over. Why did I, over and over… How could I do that to another human being?" Her voice broke completely and she let herself sob, burying her head in her arms. "They're right! I'm a monster!"

Her throat felt raw with tears and all the sobbing and her arms were shaking, not from the cold, but from everything else. And then Natsume's arms were around her, holding her close.

"You're not a monster. A monster wouldn't be concerned about being a monster."

"I feel so guilty and mostly I feel guilty about not feeling guilty! I should feel worse!"

"Have you talked to your therapist about how you feel?" He said it so uncertainly, like there was some jargon in the sentence that he couldn't pronounce. He'd pulled away and was waiting for her to speak.

"He told me I had to do it. That for years, even before Kuonji, I hadn't had any control over the things that happened to me. That killing Kuonji and stabbing him so many times was me taking control… owning myself again."

"That's good. That's really good. How could that be a bad thing?"

He was sitting on the sidewalk too, with her, his pants already wet from the rain that had washed over the city earlier that day.

She didn't know how to explain it all to him. He'd killed somebody too that night, but he'd never seemed bothered by it. If he did feel badly, she wanted desperately for him to tell her, so they could understand each other, but her therapist would remind her that understanding wasn't always necessary. Natsume didn't need to get all of it. Wasn't it enough that she had somebody to hold her like this? To listen to her? To remind her that she only belonged to herself?

"Mikan," Natsume said. "It's going to be slow progress, but you're gonna get better. It won't be overnight, and it might never fully go away, but you'll feel better."

Slow progress. It was all slow. Too slow.

She belonged to herself. But she'd always wanted one part of her to belong to somebody else.

"Can I kiss you?" she asked.

Natsume's eyes widened and she almost felt guilty for asking.

Sakurano had kept the question about whether or not they were together. She'd watched herself talk about all the reasons why they weren't a couple, the sad disappointment in her downcast eyes about an arrangement she understood but resented. Natsume hadn't said anything about that. He hadn't said anything about the whole movie, really.

"Why did you even come?" she let herself ask because she didn't want him to answer the first question. "You don't even like Hotaru. Or most of the people in the House. Or Sakurano."

"But I like you," Natsume said. "And I would have hated it if something like this happened, and nobody followed you outside, if you'd cried all by yourself out here in the cold. That's why I came."

"You knew I would break down?" Mikan said. "You knew I would cry and embarrass myself…"

"I knew that this movie would be hard for you to watch," he corrected. "I knew that you'd pretend to be fine. I knew that you wouldn't be fine, because what you lived through wasn't fine and it's stupid to expect yourself to be fine. You don't have to be fine. You can break down or cry or embarrass yourself. I'll be here anyway. Whatever you choose. Just don't pretend."

Mikan wiped her eyes. She could feel herself blubbering already if she opened her mouth. But he didn't want her to pretend.

Sakurano hadn't included the part when he'd asked her if she still loved Natsume. She'd told him she wouldn't answer and he'd respected her enough to omit it. Her lack of response was a pretty telling answer anyway.

"I love you," she said. "I don't want to belong to myself. Not entirely. I wanna be yours. At least a little bit. I don't want to go slow."

The therapist didn't fully understand that either. It wasn't all about rejecting the notion that she belonged to Kuonji. It was about the fact that he owned all of them, that they had to share everything. That ownership was selfishness and the only one allowed to be selfish was Kuonji.

Mikan wanted to be selfish. She wanted to own herself so fully that she could give parts of herself to whomever she chose. She wanted to give Natsume her heart, not have to stow it away somewhere he couldn't find it. She wanted him to give her his heart too. She wanted to own him, whatever he was willing to give her.

Natsume answered with a kiss to her cheek.

It surprised her. He pulled away and she twisted to stare at him head on.

"What-"

"I'm not gonna kiss you here," he told her. "This place sucks."

"But, what about taking things slow?"

"You just said you didn't want to do that."

"But what about what you want?"

He rolled his eyes. He kissed her again, this time on her lips. It was just a little peck, but it was enough to send a jolt to her heart. She'd figured it should be across town, maybe in Ruka's apartment, in between the couch cushions. Instead, she could feel it a few inches away, tucked away in Natsume's pocket.

"I love you too," he said. "We can go at whatever pace you want, but I'm telling you again: I'm not kissing you here."

Mikan giggled, wiping away the last of her tears.

He straightened himself and stood up, holding out his hand to help her do the same. She let him pull her up and examined the rain damage to her dress.

"Let's get out of here. This place sucks anyway."

"I should say goodbye to everyone… and what about Hotaru? You drove her here-"

"She'll be fine. You can talk to the rest of them tomorrow. I'll call each of them for you and apologize for stealing you away. They'll all understand anyway. You don't have to go back in there. Let's go."

They'd never gone back to the convenience store. They probably never would. It was a haunted place and Mikan was sure if she ever returned her stomach would rip open and she'd start to bleed all over again, all over the familiar linoleum.

Instead, they went to a fast food restaurant, both dressed in their fancy, water-damaged attire, missing out on a catered buffet and good-quality wine so they could eat burgers and soda on plastic seats.

"Is this our first date?" Mikan asked.

"No," Natsume answered around a mouthful of his burger. "Our first date was when you asked me if I wanted tuna mayo or salmon."

She blushed. "What happened to starting over?"

"We can pretend to start over a million times but that doesn't change the fact that we first met over organic lemonade."

"You met me for the first time over organic lemonade."

"What does that mean?" he asked.

"Well…" Mikan was suddenly ashamed, and rightfully so. "I'd been keeping my eye on you for a few nights before that."

"Of course," Natsume said. "Stupid of me to assume you started stalking me after you talked to me."

"I don't want to start over," Mikan confessed. "I know it's not a nice story, but it's still ours. We shouldn't pretend."

"Yeah," he replied. "I know. It was stupid of me to think we could be normal. Or that we should be. That's why I said our first date was the onigiri."

"You didn't even eat any!"

"Still."

Her therapist had analyzed her feelings for Natsume.

Natsume was a bizarre creature on the outside of her life. He was something distant but viewable, mysterious but human. She could watch him and feel comfort, a certain kinship with his nocturnal lifestyle and sad eyes. When he became more real, when she heard his voice and saw his eyes land on her, it became unescapable. He was no longer a TV special; he was reality. And the more she watched him, the more he challenged her life and all the things she'd taken for granted, the more she needed him. Deep down, she wanted him to pull her out all the way.

Mikan didn't know about all that.

Natsume was so much more than a savior. A savior can only do so much.

He gave her something to love, something to take care of, with no strings attached, no disapproval about her selfishness.

But it was unfair to ask Mikan for a step-by-step analysis of her love for Natsume anyway.

Normal people didn't have to explain why they liked somebody, they didn't have to rationalize it for people to understand. What mattered is that she loved him and always would. Whether or not her love was acceptable or understandable didn't change the fact that it existed.

And he loved her. Did the reason why matter? Wasn't it enough that they were here, together?

It was enough for her.

The hole in her chest had been filled. His heart was resting there. He let her have it. She would take very good care of it, for as long as he let her.

"I love you," she told him.

"I love you too," he answered without missing a beat.

She smiled, but this time she was happy.

Happiest she'd ever been.

And I'm sorry he thinks more of my soul than he does my diamonds.

A/N: original inspiration is the novel "girls" by emma cline. other than the fact that they're about cults, the two stories have very little in common but its still an interesting read.

it feels like forever ago that i first finished the above mentioned book and realized i wanted to write a fic about mikan trapped in a cult and natsume forced into the position of "saving" her. i usually come up with the story as i go, and that was more or less the case until i reached chapter 6 or so. after that, pretty much the entirety of the fic was laid out for me. i hit some roadblocks and sometimes i was uninspired because the fic seemed so daunting, but im happy with how it turned out. this is officially the longest fic i have ever written. that might not always be the case, but i'm really proud of myself for finally finishing. thank you to everyone for waiting patiently for updates. i appreciate your faith in me that i WOULD complete this fic in due time.

i hope this ending is satisfactory. just trust me when i say that i can't write unhappy endings and that i was never for even a moment tempted to let either of them die in that convenience store. i wanted this last chapter to be about healing. i wanted it to be a bit frustrating at times, but ultimately mikan gets what she'd always wanted from the start, because even if this fic started out about natsume, this is MIKAN's story. she kinda took over the whole thing.

every single title, from the fic title to the chapters, is a lyric from a nicole dollanganger song. usually i picked them bc the lyric itself fit, even if the whole song didn't. nicole dollanganger is one of my favorite singers of all time. she helped save my life a few years ago so 3 my favorite love song of all time, "only angels have wings," lends many lyrics to this chapter, to the title and to the subtitles found therein. i knew from the start that this song would finish it off.

anyway this authors note didnt need to be a whole thing, but thank u guys for reading this whole mess. im really grateful for each and every kudos and comment, and ill be rereading them until i die 3 thanks for indulging this incredibly self-indulgent story. i hoped you enjoyed reading as much as i enjoyed writing it.