"Heeey Aoyama. Sorry. Looks like I didn't realize you called me cause' I was climbing this trail. It's the one near our school?
I'm at the top right now. I...needed to take my mind off things. Bye."
Voicemail from: Kanda idiot kun.
The brunette weakly leaned over the table and let the noises of grief escape her mouth. If you closed your eyes and listened, her pained cries could be heard faintly throughout the dorm. Like a ghost roaming the hallways. But it wasn't necessary for Mashiro, who had sat against Aoyama's door after she ran to her room once dinner was over.
Neither her or Sorata could get her thoughts out of Aoyama, not counting the fake responses of her usual chipper self towards Sensei. For the most part Mashiro just wanted to talk and be cried on. Be involved in Aoyama's problems because...she didn't know why exactly.
Instead she had to listen to this. Pens and plates fell to the floor when Aoyama crumbled over the table, hunching her back like a bullet ripped through her. She was huddled where table met wall, sobbing and huddled in a pitiful ball. A posture that spoke a thousand words. A posture that spoke a breakdown.
She didn't notice nor did she care when the pain left her in a long, excruciating cry with what was left of her breath. The music in Hase's earphones got louder, an uncaring response to the sounds next door. A part of her told her to stand up and visit her, but she didn't. Not knowing why, exactly. Even if she too began crying on the pages of her novel in response and they felt colder by the second.
And lonely.
It was the closest emotion to what Aoyama would say it was. While her room began to expand and expand and become more foreign to her, the space around her began to do the opposite. Crushing her with an overwhelming sense of hopelessness.
Enough of it crushed her to the point she didn't even notice the blonde standing in her doorway.
"...s...o...rata..."
"Nanami," Mashiro thought, carefully approaching her. "I can't let her suffer alone. W-Why is she all alone?! Sorata?! Hase?! Everyone?! Wh...WHY IS NOBODY HERE?!"
It didn't take much effort for Mashiro to get through and free Aoyama from her tucked knees and arms. But even with the warm body that she was hugging, her agonized wails of pain only seemed to get louder.
"It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. We'll get through this. I promise."
The trauma punched her in the gut.
When it happened to her it didn't seem real. It didn't seem as bad as it could've been, but only because she was preoccupied with how everyone else was responding.
Mari. Sorata. Mashiro. She was wrong to tell them it wasn't anything at all. Like she had tripped and scrapped her knee; merely a physical thing that needed time to heal.
Aoyama gasped for air sporadically through clenched teeth. Her entire being felt like it was trapped inside her body and was clawing its way out, but it couldn't. It didn't feel like her body anymore. She didn't feel like her. The strong, determined, relentless girl...apparently it was a lie.
Because she couldn't stop Fujisawa.
"Aoyama?!," Mashiro gasped when she was shoved away.
She ran as fast as she could through the blurriness. The cold, evening air outside doing little to stop the anguish.
"I'm sorry Kanda-kun," Aoyama cried. The route that she took to school was engrained in her. She closed her eyes and sprinted, but she couldn't feel anything other than crippling despair. "I'm sorry...
...I'm sorry that I'm so helpless. I can't do anything without you. I'm just...a scared little girl. I dragged you into my problems. I made everyone worry. What the hell is wrong with me?!"
"AOYAMA!"
She made a quick turn and the pavement gradually turned into dirt and grass. Not too far from the school, and they were at the trail. The trail that she promised she would hike every day to get fit. The trail that they wandered around after school, her and Sorata. With a bag of fast food and the looming assignments hanging over their head...but it didn't matter.
She had him. They could've gotten through everything together. The whole world could be ending but it still wouldn't matter. Because at least she wouldn't die alone.
"...I need you right now. Just...let me be helpless. I don't care! It...hurts...so much!"
Mashiro tripped on the same rock Aoyama did. She looked up and while she couldn't see her in the dark, the sounds of her scrambling upwards could definitely be heard.
"I couldn't stop him!...," she thought, frantically sprinting up the trail. "WHY?! WHY DID THIS HAPPEN GOD?! WHAT THE FUCK DOES THIS MEAN?!"
Mashiro passed by the tree stump and remembered hearing Sorata's voice. "Aoyama! Slow down, you could trip!," she yelled word for word.
The closer she got to the top, the more quiet the world around her seemed to get. The cicadas that were endlessly screaming died down one by one.
"...I...I did this."
The wind stopped howling in her ears, almost as if it felt pity towards her. Light from the moon and stars shone above, the angle of the climb preventing any trees from forming a canopy over her.
"...I deserve this."
The trail tapered off into a flat plane of grassy land.
"Sorata. I made a mistake. It was my fault."
Her knees buckled under the pressure and she fell to the ground. It was there that she let the tragedy escape her in a loud wail, the kind which she couldn't let be heard at Sakurasou. Here it was dark and isolated, with the exception of the silhouettes a few steps ahead of her.
They turned their heads towards the uncontrollable sobbing.
"IT WAS MY FAULT!," she screamed. "DON'T YOU GET IT?!"
"I...I...never wanted any of this to happen...but you shoulda just let me be..."
Mashiro froze, horrified at what she saw.
"...this...is really unfair," she whimpered, tears falling to the ground. "You'd tell me that I didn't do anything wrong, that it wasn't my fault but it was. I accept that it was. It's okay. Sorata...c-can we just...go back to the way things were? Sorata?"
"My my. That's quite the performance."
Aoyama's eyes widened. The familiar voice was all too genuine. Almost on the edge of being human, but lacking the same depth as genuine praise. Every part of her body turned to stone, when she looked up and saw the face of Fujisawa staring down at her.
Monstrous and malicious, the fake smile still visible on his face despite the shadows covering it up.
She jolted backwards and stumbled to her feet. "W-W-We c-called the p-police...!," she wavered, in a desperate attempt to fight back. "Y-Y-You're-"
"Relax Aoyama," Fujisawa conversed in a non-threatening tone. "I was just chatting with Sorata here."
"S-Sorata?!"
She saw him in a similar tensed up fashion, hands curled into fists by his sides. "Aoyama. You should get going."
"W-Why isn't he in jail?!," Mashiro exclaimed. "I thought you called the police!"
"He did. Isn't that right?"
Sorata nodded hesitantly. He was trapped between the edge of the picnic area and Fujisawa. After the countless times he had been up here, he knew what it looked like down there. He would hit the rocks two or three times before plummeting to his death in the heavily forested area.
"You don't know how surprised I was when you actually believed me yesterday."
"I hope you rot in that jail cell for eternity, you disgusting excuse for a human being," Sorata snarled.
Fujisawa sighed, sensing that there was nothing to the conversation except sharp retorts of anger. He looked up at the stars and dropped his smile.
"Such...immoral...inexcusable crimes I've committed. Why did it take so long for me to get caught?," he asked to himself. "Why did no-one stop me? Why you, of all people Sorata?"
He didn't dare take his eyes off him.
"You wanna know the worst part? I wanted to be caught. I wanted someone to stand up to me. Maybe...I could find a...real human being somewhere in the mists."
"Fujisawa."
"And that was you, Sorata. First one, in all of five years."
"F-Five years...?!," he sputtered.
"Mm. No one said a word. Not the police, not their loved ones, no one. What does that say about our society? Can I get away with anything I want?"
"It's over. No amount of money or fame can help you."
For the first time, Fujisawa let out a sigh of relief and took off his glasses. "Thank you. I'm...glad to hear that."
Sorata remembered the bruising on her wrists. He clenched his fists even harder at the thought of hundreds of women, hundreds of people suffering at the hands of the rapist in front of him.
And he was laughing. He was...laughing like nothing ever happened.
"Maybe...when I get out, we can start over. Just you and I. We would make a great team. We can build a name for ourselves, make something great, you know?"
Sorata wanted to claw Fujisawa's eyes out. "Want me to read out the names of your victims? You don't even care do you?"
"I...wished that I could."
"No you don't. You don't care. If it's pity you want you're never gonna get it. Not from me. Not from anyone."
Silence. Fujisawa stayed motionless, like the other three. He played back the moments of his life, the ups and the downs, the mundane trips to school, the conversations with his students...
A woman with red, shoulder length hair enveloped his broken mind. Chihiro Sengoku. Amidst the intense, heated arguments the two would have every single day, underneath he saw hope in her eyes. Hope that maybe they could figure their differences out and come to an agreement.
He saw her dressed in his hoodie and scarf, rocking a baby back and forth in her arms. With a smile that spoke: she couldn't be happier elsewhere.
And he had given all of that up. For the disposable awards lining his shelf and a big house.
"...Chihiro...," he mumbled with regret.
"What?," Sorata yelped.
"Sorry. I...got carried away there."
He shook the dream out of his head before carefully walking towards Aoyama, his hands still stuffed in his coat pockets.
"Aoyama. Do...you have anything to say to me?," he asked. "Anything. How much you hate me...how much you want to skin me alive...anything. Make it known before I go to jail."
Her knees were shaking uncontrollably.
"...stop...please...I...didn't...do...anything...wrong..."
The memories of the night began to haunt her with the same intensity. All she could do was let out terrified whimpers like she did before, clamping her eyes shut and simply waiting for the pain to end.
"I see," he said. "Well...for all its worth...I'm sorry. I overheard you talking about me during work and-"
"...itsnotfairitsnotfairitsnotfair...," Aoyama babbled incoherently.
Fujisawa nodded. "Yeah. It's not fair. Some people get to love happily ever after. Some people get over their problems. But people like us, Aoyama? No, not us."
The glint of the knife as he raised it in the air. The same knife Sorata dropped in his house. The same knife that would have been used against him.
Aoyama thought the last thing she would see was Sorata. Old and wrinkled, his body decayed but his eyes reflecting all their journeys they had together. Maybe her kids and grandkids if she had any, would be sitting around her bed, holding her hand too. Before peacefully passing off into the afterlife.
But instead, all she saw was Fujisawa's animalistic face of pure hatred, lunging towards her with the knife in slow motion.
"..this is it," she thought calmly. "...I deserve this."
She felt cold metal press against the side of her neck.
"...my...it was fun. We had a good ride, didn't we Sorata?"
She fell on the ground with Fujisawa on top of her, his face inches away from hers so that he could see the life drain from her eyes.
"I wish...we could've spent more time together."
...
"I love you."
Her eyes jolted awake when she heard Sorata scream in her ear. Blood splattered on her cheek as she laid there, too scared to look down. Mashiro and Sorata fought with every cell in their body to take control over the knife, slick and slippery with blood from both sides.
"I...love you. I love you."
They managed to wrestle Fujisawa off Aoyama in a chaotic frenzy without any method in their movements. The adrenaline pumping in their veins preventing any of them from feeling the deep cuts and slashes all over their body.
"NO!"
Aoyama instantly shot up as if Mashiro's scream was a gunshot. Fujisawa was so blinded with rage that he didn't notice the brunette pick up a rock, walk up to him and crack his skull open. He fell limp but it didn't stop Aoyama from caving his face in, again and again.
She let out a guttural scream as her hands got bloodier by the second. The wet gurgles that resembled breathing stopped in an instant when the rock hit something hard, and it split in two.
"AOYAMA!," Mashiro shrieked. She rushed over to Sorata, who was laying still with his bloodied hands over his throat. There was so much red. It was hard to differentiate between hands and neck.
"KANDA-KUN! Stay with me! J-Just keep pressure on it kay'? Mashiro!"
"...a...oy...ma...," he gurgled. It sounded like he was talking under water.
"NO! DON'T TALK! JUST KEEP BREATHIN'! DON'T YOU FUCKING DARE DIE ON ME!"
Sorata smiled up at his friend as he was taken down the mountain. "Oh...you look so cool right now, Nanami. I hope I get to see you on the big screen some day. Some...day..."
"KANDA-KUN?! KANDA-KUN! SORATA!"
AN: And there we have it! The end of part 4, hope you liked it! I originally planned to include an actual rape scene but I found it to be kinda pointless other than providing shock value. Thanks JayDuck for the review, you made me get up at two in the morning to write about whatever was on my mind. Worth it. BTW Please let me know if I left out key bits of information around this mini 4 parter. I try not to spoon feed too much but sometimes I forget bits of information that are necessary in linking everything together. Here's the TLDR, seeing that these parts have ended:
1. Friday night, bad no no happens to Aoyama after she forgot her phone back at the studio. Mari, because she was worried about how long she had been gone for, goes back to the studio and is shocked to what she encounters. They both go home, Aoyama explains what happened to Sorata.
2. Saturday, Sorata gets the video from Mari and confronts Fujisawa at his home. He is unable to do anything. Saturday night, they realize he was bluffing about the blackmail. They call the police and send the evidence.
3. Sunday, the day goes by with Fujisawa doing his best to buy himself some more time, with the intent to kill Aoyama. At night, he follows Sorata as he was taking a walk up the mountain, where this chapter takes place.
This was really fun to write!
