When Hitonari left the house to live on his own, to take his own path through Kouzu, all Takuya could think to do was run. He meant to go by every day on his after-school run, but somehow he managed to convince himself that Hitonari was fine, that he wouldn't want his older brother checking up on him, that maybe he wouldn't even be there. But eventually he ran out of excuses and ended up arriving to exactly what he had expected. It was a strange sort of loss; he ran more.
When Akane broke his leg, Hitonari was at a loss. The aching, sucking black hole in his heart as he realised in a split second what this meant would not go away. And so he ran, every night that the moon was covered by the clouds and it did not rain, every time passing by the bedroom where his first real friend slept uneasily in a hospital bed. He imagined himself walking in, stroking a fevered forehead, sitting down and watching over him all night. But thoughts like that didn't last long while he was running, and soon exhaustion made the only thing he could think of was one foot in front of the other. He couldn't even cry.
Some days, forgetting was the only solution - but you can only run so far.
