Nonexistent.
Chapter Four

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It was the little things that Sora kept remembering. How Sunao was picky about having his rice just so. How every night before bed, Sunao would untie his long hair and brush it out until it was silky and not a single knot remained. Once, Sora had took the brush and wanted to brush that hair, but Sunao wouldn't let him because he tugged too hard. How Sunao would bite the end of his pen if he were having trouble in class.

The little things that kept popping up in Sora's mind was what was driving him crazy. He didn't know why he kept thinking about all of those little habits of Sunao's, but he would be reminded of something every few minutes, it seemed.

The week before, he had sworn that he wouldn't let go of Sunao. He wasn't going to lose hope, no matter what. But that was a week ago. An entire week, seven entire days, had gone by since that night with Yuki. And while he still believed that Sunao existed, Sora was just as close to finding him as he was the morning he had vanished.

He knew Yuki didn't believe him. His new roommate was shy and didn't say what he was thinking. But even after that little burst of emotion a week ago, the younger boy was still trying to help him search. Yuki had been a lot more help than Sora had first thought, not only could he hack into a school's files, he had gone through a government database. While Sora still knew beans about computers, he did know that couldn't have been very easy. Of course, everything came up with nothing, but Yuki really was trying.

Out of anyone who would hurt Sora in his search, he would never have imagined that it would be Matsuri.

It happened the next morning, during one of his morning classes. He had been not at all paying attention, instead, he had been writing the name 'Sunao' across a blank sheet of paper. There was a bit of a racket as the door had opened, an unknown man spoke with the professor for a moment.

"Sora? Could you come with me for a moment?" The professor asked, turning from the unknown person. All eyes turned on Sora, who blinked in a 'who, ME?' sort of look. What had he done now? But not wanting to cause any more trouble in the class, he stood and gathered his things.

Yuki, who sat several rows in front of him, suddenly became wide eyed. He waved for Sora's attention, but the other boy just waved, figuring that he would just speak to him later.

As Sora reached the front of the room, he could see a student with all blonde hair standing just outside of the door, giving him an attempt at a sorry grin. He froze, knowing that something was not right at all. A lot of things then happened at once.

Yuki had over turned his chair as he jumped up, yelling for Sora to run.

Sora's body jerked to start running, not quite knowing what was going on.
The unknown man grabbed Sora.
There was a sharp pain in his arm.
And then everything went black.

>

"Hashiba Sora."

He was waking, but having a hard time of it. His head felt so heavy, every part of his body felt heavy. But he fought to open his eye lids.

He didn't see a sight he liked.

"Aizawa!"

The man nodded. He was sitting on a nearby chair, wearing a long white jacket, clipboard on his lap. His hands were folded gently across the clipboard.

"Good evening, Hashiba." Aizawa greeted.

Sora attempted to sit up in the bed, not liking to being lying down near the man, but he was having trouble moving. He just felt so heavy. But this was the biggest break in his search for Sunao. This man, this man had been the one in the lab. The one who did all of those horrible things. He knew about Sunao!

There were possible plots running through Sora's head. One of the most possible that he could think of was that Aizawa had kidnaped Sunao and drugged everyone to forget about him. Only, Sora didn't forget, or maybe he needed Sora too. And now everyone would be drugged to forget about him too.

"Where...where is he?" Sora snapped, finally able to pull himself into a sitting position. He would fight him, if he had to, to find out where Sunao was. Even if he could barely sit up or keep his eyes open, he swore he'd do all he could to get any sort of information away from this evil man.

"Where is who, exactly, Hashiba?" Aizawa questioned calmly.

His calm expression was what drove Sora crazy. All the time, so calm, thinking his was a damn well God!

Sora nearly growled at him. "Sunao. Where is Sunao, you creep!"

Aizawa glanced down at his clipboard. He flipped the page over and fingered through some words before looking back up at Sora.

"Fujimori Sunao."

Finally! Someone knew of him! Sora was right in thinking that Aizawa knew, it was him behind everything! The man was complete evil and this just showed it!

"Yeah? And where is he!" Sora wanted to strangle the man sitting so close to him. If his body would move properly, he would. They must have given him something, back before he blacked out. Something to sedate him, perhaps?

Aizawa stared him down. "Hashiba, where is he?"

This question threw Sora for a loop. What in the world was he trying to play now?

"Wouldn't it be nice, if to have our own, special friend, we could just imagine him up?" Aizawa questioned. "Someone we could blame for our mistakes. Someone who would be there for us, no matter what? Or perhaps in your case, someone to help us make our lives much more interesting?"

"In...teresting?" Sora repeated.

Aizawa stood, clipboard in hand. "You think about that. I'll be back in the morning. Sleep well."

He left the room, the door shutting softly behind him.

Sora stared at the door, completely lost at this point. This dream world was really started to be too confusing to even understand anymore.

"...what...the...hell..."

>

That night went by with very little sleep. Sora had attempted to run away, but found the door had been locked. The window had bars on it. There was no way to escape.

With time to think, he now understood what had happened. Matsuri had done what he had threatened to do and went to the adults. They had shipped him off...somewhere. And since when was Aizawa a doctor? Wasn't he supposed to be a scientist?

But what had Aizawa been spewing? And why did he seem to think that Sora already knew were Sunao was? It had sounded like he believed Sora was making it all up with the 'wouldn't it be nice to imagine a friend' crap. What if he had imagined Sunao, which he hadn't really believed before even when Yuki had brought it up. That thought was starting to go through his mind more often.

'What if...I'm crazy?'

Maybe he did just make Sunao up. That was now a possible thought. Maybe he had been lonely, or scared. And like how he believed his story of being kidnaped as children and creating Yoru, maybe he had created Sunao just the same. He even have his make believe Sunao create his own alter ego, Ran, that way he wouldn't have mental issues alone.

The more he thought about this possibility, the more it scared him.

>

Aizawa came that morning, just as he said he would. At nearly ten AM, the door opened and the man Sora had hated and feared for more than half of his life walked in the door.

"Good morning, Hashiba, how are you doing today?" He questioned as he crossed the room to sit in the chair beside him.

He sat in the same fashion as the day before, clipboard in lap, hands calmly crossed.

"I've been better..." Sora said, rather truthfully. He would have felt much better if he was just waking up in his own bed, Sunao in the other.

Aizawa nodded. "Did you think about what I spoke about yesterday?"

Sora almost glared. He had thought about that nearly all night, not even on purpose, now not being able to not worry that he was making Sunao up.

"It's not healthy for someone your age to worry so much, you know." Aizawa was saying, his eyes calmly placed on Sora's own. "Why don't you tell me your life's story, Sora? From birth to right at this moment."

His...life story?

But Sora thought quickly. If he had made up Sunao, what if what he believed had happened in his life really hadn't happened? Either way, if something was wrong, Aizawa would never let him leave this horrible hospital. Of course, Aizawa was evil, so he was most likely going to kill him or experiment on him anyway...whatever.

"Why don't you tell me my life story, you know it." Sora spoke.

Aizawa was silent for several moments, looking at the teen's face. Sora didn't back down or show what he was feeling, just looked back with that same, calm look.

"You were born in Tokyo." The old man finally spoke. "You're parents died when you were two, in a car accident. You and your younger brother were sent to an orphanage, but he was adopted out quickly."

There was that 'brother' word again. It seemed like what Yuki had found on the internet had been true.

"You were lonely as a child, but had one friend outside of the orphanage, Honjo Matsuri." He continued. "When your friend moved far away, you had no one else to turn to. That is when we believe you first 'met' Sunao."

That was wrong, seeing as Sunao had known Matsuri too, but being how the blonde seemed to not remember Sunao either, than that counted for nothing. Really, how could even Matsuri not remember Sunao?

"At eight, your uncle took you from the orphanage and became your guardian. You were teased in the public school and Sunao came more often. Your best friend." Aizawa glanced down at his clipboard. "At fourteen, you were first brought to the hospital because you would often speak to nobody and this concerned your uncle. And last year, you fell out of a fourth story window, claiming that Sunao pushed you."

Sunao pushed him?

"And now, here we are again, discussion Sunao again, although I thought we had agreed that Sunao was nonexistent last year." Aizawa looked back up at him. "Does that seem about right, Hashiba?"

Sora stared for a few seconds, taking in this story that he did not at all believe. An uncle? Sunao pushing him out of a window?

Aizawa leaned forwards, his face inches away. "Let him go."

At those words, Sora flipped out and it took three people to sedate him.

I wasn't going to end there, I was going to keep going a bit. But I ended there just because it was such a great place to stop. I figure that 'flipping out' would be exactly how Sora would react to Aizawa telling him to 'let go' of Sunao.

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Already into chapter four and I'm still not exactly sure how I'm going to end this. I had planned for only about five-six chapters...but I've been making these chapters so short. Usually, I'd combine two or three of these short chapters into one, but...meh, whatever, it's still the same amount of words to read. Since these chapters are so short, I'm now thinking that it'll be about seven or eight chapters long.

In chapter 5: Yuki comes to the rescue!...or does he?