Hello all! Here is the latest chapter. This time it is from Jack's point of view and we'll be following him as he waits for rehearsal to end.

Should I avoid going to see you now? Am I to blame for how you turned out?

"You know, you're pretty awful at comforting others. It's no wonder everything Legoshi said was weird and he sulked around like a depressed hunchback if he was hanging around you."

Is that what everyone thinks when they see me? Have I been unknowingly giving Legoshi bad social skills? Was the way that I talked to him the reason he felt like he needed to isolate himself?

If I think back to when we first met as children, do I…? Is he…? Were we…?

I watched the deer walk until the door shut behind him. And then I was left alone.

Is this my future? Will I corrupt and destroy everyone that I spend time with?

I sighed and rubbed my temples. It was true that I told Louis that I needed to be alone for a while but, now that I was by myself, I felt so empty. So isolated. And more than that, so… lonely.

In less than five minutes, I had become a whiny, little puppy. It felt even worse when I realized that I had tears staining my cheeks and snot draining to my lips.

I couldn't look at the Drama Club's building any longer. Not only did it bring back memories of that day, but I still could feel the desperation in the air while I walked through the building.

I wiped my eyes and blew the snot from each nostril into the grass. As I wiped my nose, I noticed the sun had moved beyond the highest point in the sky. It was still early in the afternoon and the sky was still as blue as the ocean, but it wouldn't be long before warmer colors appeared.

The emptiness of the campus hit me as the wind blew against my back. There was no way to get around it. The environment was contaminated.

It's not just Legoshi's fault. Sure, the other killer is responsible for their half, but Legoshi is only partially responsible for his half. If I had been a better friend, if I had treated Legoshi differently, if I had… socialized with him differently, maybe he wouldn't have turned out so… isolated.

Why is it that the only thoughts I have right now are around being alone and feeling isolated?

Why can't I do… feel… say… think…?

Why can't I be normal!?

I kicked out at a rather large leaf. It stuck to my shoe. I stared at it and frustration built deep within my heart. It was heavy and cold, like a lead ball sitting on my chest.

One of the points of the leaf began to flutter as the wind changed direction. It picked up and bounced back and forth on the top of my shoe. As I stared at it, I noticed that another point had caught itself under my laces.

I bent down to free it from my shoelaces, but it ripped in half as a particularly strong gust blew in from the coast. The half that was now free flew away on the wind and headed towards a tree. The other half that was trapped in my shoe settled down and crumpled over the brown leather like… like…

Just like Legoshi's body in the shower.

A pang shattered the lead ball in my chest and I doubled over. Memories of that moment flooded my head. I saw his body crumple to the tiled floor, smelled the blood that soaked his chest, and heard his head crack as it made contact.

I felt the bile in my throat and nausea in my stomach. Any second now, I was certain vomit was going to come out of my mouth.

All from looking at a leaf? What kind of pathetic animal am I?

It was a humbling thought. The more I considered how truly pathetic it was that I was about to throw up from looking at a leaf, the more that the feeling of nausea disappeared. It was replaced with a feeling of shame that I had grown accustomed to in the last week or so. Not only was I the friend of a Cherryton student that tried to take their own life, but I was the reason that Legoshi turned out the way he did.

Deep down, I had always suspected what Louis told me, but to have it thrown in my face was more than painful. It was shocking. It was a slap in the face. It was a kick to the gut. It was all of those metaphors and none of them.

It was cruel. And worse than that, it was true.

It made me think of all of the time that I spent with Legoshi as a kid and now, I questioned everything I ever did. That first time we met at the playground, when I hurled insults at him, threatened him, and tried to fight him, suddenly seemed even more shameful than I recalled. My memories of calling him weird for behaving differently than a stereotypical wolf that I had imagined in my head, differently than the idealized image of a strong and powerful wolf, differently than a confident and brave and cool and smart and…

The memories ran together and all of the pain that I thought I had moved beyond came crashing back from whatever corner of my mind where they had been forced to hide.

It was worse than I remembered. Each adjective was a smack at my past self and an affront to the man and, more importantly, the friend I thought I had become.

Did I really poison him from the very beginning? Did he internalize those insults and carry them with him all these years? Did I doom him from the start? Did us becoming friends solidify the internalization of those thoughts?

Another wave of nausea. I found a bench and collapsed onto the wood. Unfortunately, the bench was facing the rehearsal building directly. If I wanted to look up from my shoes, I would have no choice but to look at it.

This is where everything went wrong. But I left Legoshi to talk with Louis. I let him come here, even when I knew that he was struggling. I let him be talked down to, or end up confused, or whatever happened when he came to talk to Louis. I wasn't there to keep him here.

The more I tried to have those kinds of thoughts, the more Louis' words to me made sense. It was clear what he was saying. I brought Legoshi down and never let him swim by himself. And now, when he was almost an adult, he didn't know how to be himself. I never let him develop his own personality.

Honestly, look at how I was just thinking about him. "Let him" and "left him" and all this kind of talking and thinking about him like I own him or something. Talking like I was his master and he was some kind of slave where he has no autonomy. How awful is that? And worse, this is only what I realize about myself now. How much worse is it really and I just haven't even recognized it yet?

In the back of my mind, I knew something was always weird about our relationship. The way I felt about Legoshi was always based on these feelings I had that I couldn't vocalize. That desire to want to "be" him must have shaped how I interacted with him for all of this time.

Did I want to be Legoshi so bad that I tried to mold him into an extension of myself? Did I really just want him and I to become the same? No different from clones of each other?

What even was my true relationship with him? Were we ever friends or was I some type of leech that sucked all the life away from him and left him as some type of husk of a wolf? Did I rob him of becoming his true self?

Have I ever been a friend to anyone?

I considered my relationships with the other canines of room 701. Durham and I practiced wrestling sometimes, although he was much more into it than I'd ever be. I didn't think that I had tried to change him in any way, but I guess that was because there was no real way to describe our relationship as close. The same could be said of his best friend Miguno. I listened to his music and occasionally went to see his band play, but that was when our whole group would go together. It was never me going out of my way to see him play. When I thought of Voss, my mind went blank. I couldn't think of anything that he and I did together as friends that didn't include our roommates.

Besides Legoshi, Collot was my closest friend. That much I knew. We often spoke about our lives as dogs in this world where we didn't really quite fit in. But, when thinking about it that way, it sounded better than it was in practice. In reality, I spent most of the time complaining and criticizing and whining about life. I couldn't remember the last time that Collot told me about his struggles and complaints.

Not to mention that I basically just screamed at him until he shut up yesterday.

I rubbed my face as my headache grew in strength. It was one of my lowest moments and probably the worst I had ever yelled at one of them. And it was worse that I did it to Collot. He knew of how much pressure us dogs faced to remain calm and happy in the presence of others.

Did that make it better or worse? Did he think that I was so mad that I would just disregard all of everything we had discussed? Did he think I was mad at him? Did he think it was his fault or that he had said something that made me break? Did he think our friendship was ruined because of this one fight that showed who I really was?

Or is it just me?

If that meant all my friendships were ruined with my roommates and I was the reason that Legoshi was… like that, then where did that leave me? Who was left for me?

Do I really deserve someone?

No one had really spoken to me since the resumption of classes. Not beyond a teacher.

Just Louis.

I looked up to see the rehearsal building. Shadows covered the bricks in a triangular pattern. In fact, the sky was orange and the wind had only picked up. As the sun sank lower towards the ocean, it was absorbed by clouds.

I looked back to the building that housed the Drama Club. The club was the only group of students that I had spoken to, other than my roommates, since Legoshi.

And Louis has been the only one that I've spoken to more than once or twice.

It hurt knowing that my only connection to the deer came from… this entire mess. It meant that we had been thrusted into each other's lives because of our friends. I didn't know Haru and I was still uncertain of how she and Louis knew each other, but I was certain that they were close. Louis had confessed to a lot of things that put the puzzle pieces together.

For all of our fighting, he…

I was jolted from my thoughts by the doors flying open. The Drama Club members were leaving for the day. Most of them had a certain pep in their step that initially made me think it was due to curfew and the killer still at large, but the sound of raised voices coming from within the building gave me another idea.

The shouting grew louder and clearer as the students involved in the altercation got closer to the door. I was able to pick out Bill's voice first, mostly as he seemed to be screaming at someone. Only when I saw Louis exiting in a hurry as Bill followed him from behind did I see the target of his rage.

"Today was not a good practice." A low, grumpy voice declared from behind me.

I jumped at the sudden sound and turned around to see Riz frowning. He, along with the few other club members who had stuck around, watched the tiger chase the deer down the steps, arms flailing and claws out.

When did Riz even get here? How did he sneak up on me? Did I even see him walk out the front door?

"Honestly, maybe things would have been better if Louis had stayed away. If things had just stayed the way they were…" Riz rubbed at his chin absentmindedly.

"What makes you say that?" My voice came out a little more defensive than I had meant. If Riz noticed, he didn't say anything.

Did I ruin the Drama Club as well by bringing Louis back?

"Well, Louis was originally the titular character in Adler but, when he left, Bill took his place. I think he's a bit jealous about Louis just showing back up and taking back his role. Not to mention all of the timing mistakes that we had today and Tao's dislocated finger from sparring with Louis. Kai also blinded Bill with the lights at the end and Louis cut his face with the prop. That was when Bill really started to get frustrated." Riz finished somewhat abruptly, as if he had wanted to say more.

That's… a lot that went wrong today.

Louis' shoulders bent forwards and he was hardly saying a word to defend himself from Bill's tirade. His head was tilted down, but it was obvious to tell just how upset he was.

Louis turned to face Bill when he reached the bottom of the steps. I couldn't see his face, but whatever he saw in Louis' expression caused him to stop in his tracks

"Alright! I get it, Bill! You're right! There! Are you happy now? Just fuck off and leave me be!" Louis' voice boomed across the space, bouncing off the wall of the rehearsal building and much louder than Bill's voice had been up to this point.

Bill hesitated for only a split second, before he smirked and walked down the steps without another word. Louis watched him walk away.

"Should we…?" I began to ask Riz, but he was gone when I turned around.

How does he keep doing that? He's very quiet for such a large man.

The remaining students began to leave as well. No doubt that whatever I had missed inside the building left a bad taste in everyone's mouth. In a matter of moments, it was just Louis and I left in the nearby area.

As seems to be the case more often than not.

I stood up from the bench and started to head over to him. He looked up from the spot on the steps where he was sitting. His face was contorted in such a pained expression that I was left speechless.

And that's all for this chapter. We return to Louis' perspective in the next chapter, but we will return to Jack along the way, and even to a third point of view in just a couple of chapters.

As always, comments and constructive feedback are welcomed and appreciated. Until next time!