I'm sorry. After November I was totally burned out. I am very sorry about how long it took for me to be able to start updating again. It's just no matter how hard I tried everything I wrote was only worthy of the scrap pile. I guess writing over 50,000 words in a month will really kill your muses.

On the plus side I'm reasonable happy with this chapter, so I hope you enjoy it.

Chapter 23: Yellow Stained Shirt

Light was gleamed off of the knife held above Ryuichi's head, and Aoi's smiled was more evil and cruel than anything she could have possibly imagined.

The scream that tore free from her throat was both shrill and weak, but it was loud enough. She watched as Aoi's face smiled even more viciously. Like he was teaching her a lesson that was so horrifying that the very idea of it made her hands shake.

She tried to scream again, this time louder.

Her throat burned from the pain of it. The swelling in her throat made it almost impossible. It hurt so much. Narumi screamed until her throat couldn't take anymore.

"Narumi, what's wrong?"

She tried to get anything past her throat, but it was just so painful to speak right now. The screaming had only made things worse; she couldn't say that there was someone behind him. She couldn't even warn him properly.

Why? Why was it that he didn't run he had heard her! There was no way that Ryuichi hadn't heard her.

She tried so hard, but she could do nothing except struggle against an invisible weight holding her down. She had to get him away from Aoi-san. She just had to!

"Narumi? Narumi!"

She fought desperately to break free from whatever was keeping her down. She couldn't let this happen she just couldn't!

"Narumi, wake up! Please you gotta! You just gotta wake up! Narumi!"

"Sis, please!"

Narumi's eyes flung themselves open; they felt like they had sand in them, and her body felt like there was a huge weight on it because there had been. Ryuichi had been holding her down as she thrashed around in her bed.

Ryuichi's hands felt so warm and comforting, as he held her down in her bed. Like he was trying to help her, he was hesitant to move away. In many ways whatever dream it was that she had just been having it reminded him of his own after his parents were killed, and it made him worry.

What kind of a past did Narumi have? He wondered.

Thinking about it he really didn't know that much about her past, and for some reason that bothered him quite a bit. What could it be that was so bad that she would both scream and thrash in her sleep?

Sure, Ryuichi didn't know her for that long of a time but he did feel that he knew her very well. To him she was probably the kindest, gentlest, and possibly the most confusing woman he had ever met.

She definitely even ranked as fascinating, and he had a feeling that she could be more than a little frustrating if she ever wanted to be. She probably was to a lot of people but so far it was just the good things he could see.

It was like she was a human flower or something. Though the real question was what kind of flower? The world had become a lot brighter since he had met her and he only wanted to see her happy. In many ways that dream had scared him because there hadn't been anything he could really do about it except try and wake her up.

He wished... he wished he could ease her pain somehow. Maybe distract her for a while so that she could forget.

He forced a smile on his face. He released his hold on her wrists and started to reach over towards Kuma thinking to distract her. When she flung herself into his arms and began to sob.

Touya looked more than a little startled, he had never seen his sister needing comfort like that, and yet she demanded it almost instinctively of her new friend.

Perhaps he should stop teasing the two of them, it was beginning to seem obvious that his little sis saw him, quite possibly, as more than just as a 'mere' friend.

"It was Aoi! He found me. He's here." She sobbed into Ryuichi's shirt.

Aoi? No. This was just a dream right? Touya thought in a panic. This had to be just another dream. She had a whole slew of them after her friend's death. He couldn't have found her... right?

"Get away from Ryuichi! He's mine!"

Tatsuya strode purposefully into the room. All of his attention was focused on Narumi holding on to HIS Ryuichi. He never even noticed Touya standing there, so he was more than a little surprised when his arm was grabbed, and held tightly so that he wouldn't interfere.

"Look I don't know who you are or what you are doing here but leave my little sister alone, she's gone through enough today as it is. We don't need you making things worse, or do you normally hassle woman that are crying?"

Tatsuya tried to snap his arm away from Touya's grasp but Touya was a lot stronger than he looked. He was about to grill into him when he noticed something. There was something familiar about this person, but Tatsuya couldn't put his finger on whatever it was.

"Ryu-chan, I can't stay anymore. I'm putting you in danger with me just being here." Narumi cried still clinging to his shirt.

Come on Narumi you can say it. He matters to you. He has a right to know; after all you two are friends! He'd understand, right?

"If he's found me... I... I got to run. I have to. I can't let you be hurt. He'll kill you if he finds out. He'll kill me if he finds out."

Ryuichi's held onto her tightly. He wouldn't let go he just wouldn't! He didn't understand what she was talking about but something important was going on and he knew he was being left out of the loop.

This was one thing he definitely was not going to stand for. He wanted to know what was going on, and why.

"He's going to kill us if he finds us? Who is, cause I'm not letting 'him' have you."

to be continued...