AN: Suicide warning.

Aoyama turned on her side so that the tips of her lips were tickling Sorata's ear. "Hey...when d'you think we'll stop?," she asked.

"Stop what?," he replied in the same dreary tone.

"Y'know...this. Having...sex."

Sorata didn't think he could get any hotter. Despite the old fan that was rattling warm air towards their bodies, they were being cooked alive in the Japanese summer, made even worse by the fact that they somehow managed to make love for five hours non-stop, morning to midday.

There was no one present at Sakurasou (at least to their knowledge) to know about it too. For once there was a noise that was both as loud and consistent with the cicadas that buzzed outside.

"AH~! SORATA! OH MY GOD~!"

...the lewd loud noises still echoed in Sorata's head like it was happening at the moment.

He turned on his side to meet her eyes, but couldn't formulate a response as he was slowly weening off the pleasure from two minutes ago. Despite the heat, she shuffled close and rested her forehead on his sweaty chest. "I know that you didn't mean those things you said," she whispered. "A heat of the moment kinda thing?"

"...that's not true," he replied, absentmindedly running his fingers through her hair.

"Cut it out. We both know you love Mashiro," she laughed weakly. It was like she had accepted the fact a long time ago.

"Then why did we...?"

"...fuck like two rabbits in heat?," Aoyama finished. "We did have a rough week. You almost died. I tore apart my family. And there's a Mashiro sized hole in our hearts."

"Okay. Yeah. That makes sense."

"Yeah."

Sorata couldn't deny the Mashiro void. He noticed the quietness of the world; the same kind of way when he was sick. His mind too tired and too full to accommodate any form of entertainment he tried to feed himself, so instead resorting to laying in his bed doing nothing.

What was he meant to do with his hands if he wasn't brushing blonde hair? Or spoon feeding a hungry cat-girl? Or any of the other one hundred things he had become so used to doing on a daily basis?

The world had become colourless. Like one of Mashiro's art pieces where the first half of the painting was in black and white and the other in colour, except now the colourless part was beginning to slowly creep in-

"-I wish I could just disappear for a while," Aoyama blurted out, now stretched out lazily on Sorata's chest. She was getting more cat-like by the day.

"Oh?"

"A fresh start. Yeah...that sounds nice. Create a new save."

He grinned at the thought of a farmer girl Aoyama sitting on the porch with her trusty shotgun, attending to the necessities of running a farm. "...farmer girl Aoyama...," he muttered under his breath, barely audible.

"W-What?," she laughed. "No! Way! Too big for my liking. I would feel really lonely."

"What'd you have in mind?," Sorata asked.

She looked up at Sorata with puppy dog eyes. "I know it's really selfish...but like...somewhere with you. Maybe. I don't know where. Anywhere. Don't care, but...so long as its with you."

Sorata felt his heart skip a beat at the fantasy.

"For a while. And then we could both return to our respective game development and voice acting stuff. I-It's just a fantasy okay?!"

The emptiness plaguing his heart disappeared when he imagined himself and the beautiful brunette someplace in a far away land. He remembered the times they hung out together, just the two of them. Long before Mashiro Shiina. The times after school when they would hang out as friends, eating sweet things, goofing off at the arcade and goofing off practically anyplace they could stand really.

Back when they didn't have much except each other. It would be like that, every single day.

"And somewhere in that dumb fantasy I accounted for Mashiro too. Like she would've found someone else or...or..."

She didn't realize her hips idly grinding against Sorata's shaft, which quickly stood up at attention. If only they figured out a way to harvest some of the energy from their teenage hormones; climate change would no longer be a problem.

Neither party didn't seem to mind when their breathing turned into heavy panting, their faces inches apart. "Or what?," Sorata asked with a husky voice.

"Joined us...! Like...that...night...!," she let out with each downwards movement of her hips.

"I would be...completely okay with it!"

"Mhmm...~!"

Their eyes shot open mid-thrust after hearing Sakurasou's front door open and shut rather quickly, like someone had busted the lock on it and ran in. Aoyama and Sorata scrambled, but it was too late. The sound of shoes running up wooden steps, two- no three at a time.

Himemiya barged in and all they could do was instinctively drape the blanket over their naked bodies.

"THE FUCK HIMEMIYA?!," Aoyama screeched. "EVER HEARD OF KNOCKING-"

"-it's Hase," he said with complete seriousness. "She's gone."


...but eventually, after enough time has passed, one would get tired of this thing we call 'life'.

Hase slowly slipped her head through the noose, feeling death caress her neck gently until she tightened it. She was bubbling with...something akin to joy. Something that would make her sigh in relief. Similar to when you're told that an exam would be over soon.

Or something like that. Not quite as intense maybe.

It would all be over. One tiny step forward and...no, she was going to kick that log over with ferocity so that it would rest on its side. None of this gasping back for air at the very end, skirting the line between life and death. Her body will hang freely far above the ground.

The log, more of a stick judging by how scarily thin it was, wobbled in all directions, and the forest grew quiet. Her body started to pay attention now. Everything else began to get blurry. She could hear her heart throb dangerously quickly, like it was in her head instead of her chest.

"Why...am I crying...," she whimpered. "It's better. Like this."

Despite everything she had researched, it could not have come slower. Apparently death was running late that day. The branch above her flexed downward to the point where her toes was inches away from the ground. She had thought it was rigid enough. Instead of the mercy of a snapped neck, she was forced to endure slow, agonizing asphyxiation.

The ground below caved inwards in the shape of a grotesque, fleshy opening with fangs and bones protruding from inside. Bloodied men and women began to climb violently on top of one another, forming an anthill-like structure made of limbs and organs. It was only a matter of time until a hand wrapped around Hase's ankle, dragging her downwards into the pit. It yanked impatiently.

There was not even a thought running through her mind. Only panic. She clawed and clawed in an animalistic frenzy but she could still feel the weight on her neck grow heavier, like she had an anvil attached to it. It was only a matter of time; an excruciating amount of time, until she could feel her body being taken into the underworld. Alongside the other souls who lost their humanity in this forest.

One last desperate tug of her ankle, and the rope above her snapped so that her lifeless body could finally rest on the ground. The rope fell beside her and through her bloodshot eyes, she noticed it had been cut clean through.

"How cruel...," she heard. A young woman looked down at her with sunken eyes.

Hase let out her breath as if she was being crushed under a boulder. "...why...," she cried.

The daylight left the forest in no time at all. If she didn't think the forest was a scary place during the day, it certainly was now. There was the sense that she was being stalked from all directions, the trees creaking and groaning in the wind reminding her that there was no wall behind her to protect against predators. Despite the fact that she was in a sleeping bag. She hadn't remembered ever getting in one. In fact, she hadn't remembered ever losing consciousness.

All she could think about...was how much better it would've been. If she hung there for just a few more minutes. She had come too far and she was conscious enough to realize the permanent damage to her brain. And so started the beginnings of yet another plan.

"Eat."

Hase recoiled away when she turned her head and was almost poked in the eye by chopsticks.

"Wha-"

"Open your mouth."

"No- stop...!," Hase weakly whimpered.

"Open."

"STOP IT!," she screamed, knocking the cup of instant noodles out of her hands. The stranger's eyes widened like Hase had just crossed a sacred line. She looked down at the cup, its contents now splattered on the ground, then back at her chopsticks with some noodles hanging off it, then back at Hase.

"What the hell's wrong with you?!," she screamed but even louder. "They're noodles! They're delicious!"

"What's wrong with you?!," Hase shrieked back with a hoarse voice. "Why didn't you leave me!"

"It's illegal!"

"What?!"

"I couldn't just do nothing!"

"You could've!"

"You're stupid!"

"You're stupid! See you later!"

"Where do you think you're going?!"

"Away! From you!," Hase yelled.

She would've marched off into the darkness to find a cliff to jump off of, if it weren't for the lights shining in her face when she turned. It blinded her and she took a step back. There they were, three familiar sets of eyes staring right at her; and immediately she knew that this would be a rough night.


Regular teenagers would bring beer and a guitar and tell ghost stories in their current situation. Sitting around a campfire in a circle, out in the middle of nowhere.

This may as well have been the complete opposite.

Sorata and Aoyama were a ways away, quietly discussing amongst themselves like two parents worried about their daughter, Himemiya was still attached to his friend like his life depended on it, and the mystery girl was reading a novel quietly by herself. Although it was pretty clear, by the fact that she hadn't turned the page in ten minutes, that she wasn't really.

She sighed, closed the book and stood up. The campfire was dying down and there was nothing to eat. "Might as well go to sleep," she said out loud, crawling into her tent to get ready for the night. What luck the Sakurasou residents must've had to have her as Hase's rescuer, because she was no hiking novice. From a big green bag of stuff she fished out a five-pack of emergency thermal blankets: the shiny crinkly stuff marathon runners drape over themselves after a race. And constructed a makeshift tent in under two minutes with it.

"So...we're not gonna talk?," Aoyama quietly asked the group. "About what happened?"

The air was thick with sadness. It made their movements slow and sluggish like they were wading through water, unlike the hiker girl of course. She sat in the makeshift tent, ready to shut herself off from the world, when Sorata walked towards her.

"Thank you. Sorata, Aoyama, Himemiya and Hase," he listed, pointing to their respective owners.

"Mia."

Now that he was closer, he could make out her opal blue eyes and dark blue shoulder length hair with purple tips. Deja vu? He had seen her before but couldn't put his finger on it. She crossed her arms while Sorata unconsciously went through every single person in his class. Then he went through every single person in his school. There had to be someone. Someone with blue hair? Her thin chapped lips curled downwards.

"Is there something on my face?"

"No. Thank you Mia. Really."

"Save it," she snorted. "You should talk to your friend. I'm not in the mood to get teary eyed."

"Okay. Goodnight."

"Keep it down."

"Okay."

She shot a glance towards Hase. "...and if she's not here in the morning, I'm throwing you off a cliff."

"I-It won't happen...! Promise."

An hour passed since that interaction. Sorata looked down at his watch and it was one am, yet all four of them didn't show any signs of tiredness. Despite their frantic scramble from Sakurasou to some rural forest near where Aoyama lived.

"...it wasn't anyone's fault," Hase murmured. She was cradling her legs and her face was buried in the nook where her knees touched her chest.

"...we could've-"

Aoyama was cut off when she saw Hase raise her head and look make eye contact with her.

"Right. Sorry," she whispered, and continued idly prodding at the dim glowing charcoal with a stick.

"Can we just talk about this in the morning?," Hase hushed. "I don't want to cause a fuss."

"You never want to cause a fuss. You never want to make it about you Hase," Himemiya said. It came out sounding harsher than he intended. He sighed. "You always think you're being a burden on everyone, don't you?"

She stayed quiet and stared at the embers that flied away from the glowing coals.

"Cause you're not. And...A-And I've been really worried about you you know. And...and..."

"I don't deserve it. I don't deserve any of this. What have I done? I've just sat in my room reading the same book over and over while everyone else is...I'm a wretched piece of shit and I feel even more so when you be all nice to me like that!"

"I felt like that once," Sorata thought. "God, when I saw how effortless everyone else was at Sakurasou...I felt like an outsider. I felt like a piece of shit."

He looked up from the ground after realizing that he said that out loud. All eyes were on him like he had been passed the pillow at an intervention meeting. "I remember sitting in my room doing nothing but playing video games, going to school and repeating. Forever and ever, because in my mind I was already too late. There was no point in trying if the person next to me could do it ten times better."

"Sorata..."

"But...picking an absolutely arbitrary metric and assigning your value as a human being towards it? It's not right. It's not worth dying over. And now that I've actually gotten to know Mashiro it's not exactly clear who has it better!"

Her sleeves were drenched in tears. "...it doesn't matter. You try and try and what. We're all dead in the end. I'm not special for wanting to start early," she mumbled.

"You care about what we think. You care about what you think about yourself," Aoyama whispered gently, wrapping her in a warm hug. "Pain matters to you. Wouldn't you rather live out your dreams? E-Even if it is painful. It'll be worth it."

The last of the orange coals had faded, leaving behind smouldering ashes and embers. "...we should get to sleep," Hase suggested, not wanting to admit to she wanted to be hugged for just a little longer.

AN: I intended for Mia to look like Rikka from SSSS gridman because her face matches her personality, but you know what I realized? (She totally could look like Rin from Yuru Camp. Because she's hiking and all).

Hooray! Exams are finally over. Time to fuck up my sleep schedule by writing until I realize its 6 in the morning already!