Read and Review please.

Home Almost Alone

Shun sighs, leaning back in the chair. He looks around the room, unsure of just when Dan's father got a study. A bronze hourglass gleams in the almost pitch black room and he leans forward onto his elbows. Time is ticking. He can't get back the grains of sand that are gone. All he can do is hope, and trytrytry to salvage the remaining grains. A loud thud! rings out in the next room and he turns to a small hole in the wall. He can feel the fear as the girls slip away from the hole, but he's already on the move. His ninja skills silence his steps and quickly, too quickly, he corners them. They don't know what's scarier, Shun when he's angry, or when he's like this. Shun looks at them with a blank as a slate, no-expression expression on his face. They know he's not happy though.

"Get back to Dan's room before you disappear," with that he's gone.

Still, they know. They know like they know from looking out a window that it's raining, that what Shun said was a threat. Timidly, they move back to Dan's room. The haunting image of the bronze hourglass and Shun's frustrated expression haunts their thoughts and minds. So they know for sure now, that he's definitely not an innocent bystander caught up in something he doesn't understand. Alice looks back over her shoulder and her eyes widen slightly. That's definitely Shun, but his arms are wrapped around himself, in guilt? Or, in sadness? He looks so lost and possibly just slightly scared. Her heart pangs with guilt for spying on him and concluding that he was guilty so quickly. She looks away from him reluctantly and the door in front of them opens, revealing their very angry friends.

"Get in," Ace growls, glaring at them.

The girls exchange a confused glance before closing the door and leaning against it. Alice slips her hand behind her back and grasps the door knob, just in case. Dan looks disappointed, but extremely angry. Chan frowns at Claus, while Mira and Julie are seething.

"What?" Julie snaps.

"Oh, I don't know," Ace frowns, looking away from them. "Maybe you're the ones who abandoned us here on our own. Maybe you made everyone disappear."

"No!" Mira protests. "It's Shun."

"Prove it!" Dan yells.

"… We can't," Alice whispers. "He caught us, so he's probably being really careful right now."

"Nice try," Claus frowns. "So tell us, why did you do it?"

"I'm telling you we-" Mira snaps.

"Shun's the leader," Chan comments, interrupting Mira. "He's the highest position here and he calls the shots. If we were behind all of this, don't you think that we'd go for that position?"

"She's faking us out," Ace growls. "You say that you'd do something, but don't so you don't look suspicious."

"Then tell us," Chan glares. "Runo disappeared after looking for Shun, and we were all here then. Maybe she saw something that she wasn't supposed to, so he took her out of the picture. It makes sense, since he's hardly ever with us and hasn't disappeared yet. Whereas Runo disappeared the first time she was alone."

"But Shun's our friend!" Dan yells.

"So are we!" Mira snaps.

"Yea Dan," Julie glares. "and you didn't hesitate to blame us."

"Well, you see…" Dan trails off.

"Oh, we see perfectly Dan," Mira scowls.

"Wait!" Ace says suddenly. "We were just curious, we've gotta be careful, you know."

"Which is why you wouldn't even dream of blaming Shun," Julie rolls her eyes. "Yea right. We believe that, don't we?"

Alice watches them arguing and takes advantage of their distraction to slip out of Dan's room soundlessly. One hand on the wall, she follows the hall down to a back window. She looks down through the glass and pouring rain at Shun standing there. He doesn't seem affected by the vicious, violent weather at all. Alice frowns at him, because she can, and because she doesn't want to believe that her friend would do something like that. That one of her friends would betray them. He flinches and grows still again for a moment, then he turns and looks up, straight into her eyes. No, he's not happy, but he's almost asking her something silently. She clasps her hands in front of her chest and looks down, before meeting his gaze and nodding determinedly. Then Shun disappears…

Disclaimer: I own the plot. Everything else goes to their rightful, respected owners.