Ahahaha I didn't forget about you guys, I promise 0w0; Here you go…

Gumi, within the time span of Miku's tantrum and Len's arrival, reeled over Gacha's words, and wished she had paid more precaution to what he said.

Miku stood firmly as the wind weaved through her pigtails. Her strands of teal whipped behind her harshly, the ends of her hair snapping at the wind. Gumi stood in a position opposite to Miku's fierce stance; she hunched against over the wall and scanned the ground, silently wondering what she could do to alleviate the situation, but there was nothing more that could be done. Gumi silently acknowledged the fact that she owed Gacha something for warning her about Miku. Miku's rage was unlike her, and Gumi doubted that this wouldn't be Miku's last outburst- after all, Len hadn't shown up yet. If Len had send her those messages, then Miku had every right to be mad, but Gumi wondered why he would do so. Why would he want more abuse? Gumi wondered if Len actually wanted to be hated.

Gumi gazed from the blacktop surface to Lily, who, while seemingly peeved, was otherwise calmly fixing her hair through the reflection of the window behind her. She envied Lily's tranquility, yet thought of how often Miku's rages had to be in order for Lily to act so calmly around her. Gumi rubbed her forehead, her mind scrambled. She glanced up at Miku again and wondered how terrible the girl must have felt. Miku was enraged to a point where her rage was almost outrageous, but if Len did send her those messages, then Gumi couldn't blame the girl. Gumi, with her back against the wall, still decided to give Miku her space. Gumi knew that her words weren't going to soothe Miku either; her brain was no more concrete than the consistency of jelly due to the previous night's events and the current situation. Gumi put her mind on hold and decided to wait for the outcome. There was nothing more she could do but to wait and see.

He had slept in late. It was a terrible mistake for Len, who lived far from the school and had no choice but to pace his scrawny legs as fast as he could. Len panted as his cheeks became a searing red. He knew he should have gone to bed earlier that night- and he did -but his brain instead whined over the loss of his cellphone instead of letting him close his eyes. The last place it had been was in the library, yet the school was locked by the time he ran back to the building to try to retrieve it. He prayed that his cellphone was still in its original spot, and that it hadn't been taken, or, more catastrophically, that someone realized that it was his. As much as he wished he could crush his phone in his fist, it was his only way to communicate with the world outside of Kahiru, nor was strong enough to destroy the cellphone with his bare hands in the first place.

He slowed his pace when he saw the school building. He heaved tiredly but kept his head up. His ears caught the rambunctious chatter coming from the blacktop. He grimaced. He didn't like being seen by large crowds. He made it a point to come to school before any other students could come, so he could relax himself before he had to face the usual rounds of harassment for that day.

'Great.'

He pulled his head downward and stepped up onto the courtyard. He didn't have to look up to see the students glaring at his unkempt hair and baggy uniform. He could feel their stares burning into him already. As long as he weaved through the crowds without attracting any more attention, he would be okay, Len told himself. He'd still be hissed and sneered at, but otherwise, he'd be in good condition physically. He walked through the sea of students as quickly as possible. He didn't bother trying to dissect their whispers. He kept his gray eyes on the asphalt. Despite his attempt to ignore the murmurs, their words grew louder, to the point where it became strange. He cast his eyes upwards and saw crowds of students jeering at him, whispering into the ears of their friends while they pointed at him, with anger and accusations filling their fingertips. The fact that the whole school seemed to have their eyes set on him was unsettling.

'What did I do now?'

He was sure he hadn't killed anyone lately, or else he would have been murdered himself by now. Unless she told them. Len snarled to himself; he knew he shouldn't have trusted Gumi. Now that he had angered her enough, he would feel her wrath, but the words of the students surrounding him promised that he would feel their anger first.

"Fucking little creep-"

"-can't believe he actually showed his face-"

"-asking for it."

He gulped. He had done something wrong, except this time, he had no idea what he did to deserve to be 'asking for it', unless Gumi (still newly named the 'green-haired witch' in Len's mind) had actually opened her mouth about what he said to her. Len shivered. That was the only possible explanation. He regretted opening his mouth to her in the first place, even if it did get her away from him, yet he regretted calling her stupid now. That wasn't his best thinking. Len attempted to skim through the students, as some shoved him when he accidentally pressed against him, while others recoiled when their skin touched the fabric of his shirt. He watched the students suddenly separate from each other, as if Moses had parted them like the sea. Len mistook the action as the students' refusal to touch him. He didn't mind; he had his cellphone to retrieve. He shrugged and attempted to make his way into the school building until the presence of another student quickly blocked his way as she stomped down the aisle, causing the students to part further in order to create enough walking room for the girl. Len immediately stepped backwards when his eyes met with Miku's distorted, enraged face. He took another step backwards until he fell over abruptly, his back meeting the blacktop. The students above him laughed and eagerly slapped the hand of the boy who had stuck his foot out.

"Get up."

Len immediately rose as soon as Miku's demand hit his ears. He set his eyes to the ground in order to hide from the sneers of his peers. Polished black shoes met his gaze.

"Do you want to explain something to me, Gaijin?"

Len bit his bottom lip. "I don't know what you're talking about."

The voices behind him rose with outrage, as if they had been personally insulted. Their voices quickly quieted down into snickers when Len was presented with Miku's cellphone. His eyebrows narrowed, Len gazed at the screen.

'I didn't send those texts. What the hell is she-'

His breathing halted when he saw that his number had sent those messages.

"Do you want to explain yourself?"

Miku's question hit the air and froze over the school population's whispers. The students seemingly leaned in to hear Len's reply. He stood silently, taking care to breathe quietly as his body became numb, his legs becoming frigid and solid like the ground beneath him.

"I didn't send those texts."

The cellphone was moved away from his sight, and his face was introduced to five well-manicured nails and a heated palm. Len recoiled from the slap and he hunched over, holding his face. Miku had never slapped him that hard in her life.

"Pig!"

Len shivered as the once silent air became filled with jeers and promises of suffering. Miku trembled angrily before him. Slowly, she straightened her back, her eyes beginning to calm. She gently rubbed the red palm of her right hand. She abruptly frowned at her hand. Her nose scrunched up as she let out a small grunt of disgust. She took out a small bottle of antibacterial gel from her pocket. She poured a good amount of the gel onto her hands while the crowd around her and Len laughed with amusement. Len felt himself shrink while Miku rubbed her hands together.

"I didn't realize that you had short-term memory loss, Gaijin. I'm very sorry," Miku said, her 'apology' void of any sympathy, as she tucked the gel away. Her eyes swallowed Len as she stared at him with malcontent. "Perhaps Kaito can jog your memory?"

Kaito appeared beside her. Despite the cheers for him, the blue haired boy's eyes were glued to the ground. Len knew that, if he learned anything in primary school, was that Kaito couldn't even get himself to kill a mosquito. The uncertainty in Kaito's eyes was enough for Len to figure out that this wasn't his idea. Kaito walked toward Len. The weak boy attempted to back away from Kaito's larger frame, until Kaito took him by the arm and faced him. Len shivered and kept his eyes to the ground, ignoring the shouts around him, as he realized the other reality; Miku still had Kaito wrapped around her thin, pale finger. Kaito was going to hurt him.

"Do it, Kaito!"

That particular scream from the crowd was enough to get Kaito to raise his arm. Len shut his eyes and winced, but relax the muscles in his face; wincing only made the pain worse. Within moments he felt the shattering pain, as if a rock had been hurled into his face. He swore that he could feel the left side of his jaw splinter. His shoulder met the ground within an instant, as the rest of his body crashed onto the blacktop. The slow cheers and hollers around him lagged as his mind whimpered from the pain, his brain only clinging to consciousness due to the fear of what would the students would do to him if he was dead to the world. A louder sound broke the cheering. Len sagged to the ground, not bothering to rise to the sound of the school laid limply on the ground while he listened to the voices dissipate. He heard an occasional crunch. Large droplets spilt onto his face. Was rain predicted for today? Len wasn't sure. The voices eventually drowned into the school building. When the silence became full, Len slowly sat up and rubbed his jaw. He slowly open and closed his mouth. The pain wasn't too horrible; perhaps Kaito was being sympathetic after all, but the lingering pain made him rethink such a thing. Len's fingers came into contact with the sticky liquid coated all over his face. Len cringed as he pulled his fingers away. He rubbed his index and middle finger together then pulled them apart, and watched the bubbly thread of liquid form a bridge between them. He groaned. He had hoped it was rain, but God would have been too kind to him to do something like that. God only turned his eyes away when it came to his misery.

"You're lucky that I'm not telling the office."

Miku towered over the boy, her eyes void of the stars that were always present to everyone else. Len leaned on his blows as stared at Miku's shoes. Her malicious laughter stung the air.

"You have something on your face."

Len used his good shoulder to rub away the sliver of saliva that had traveled down to his eye from his forehead. He permitted Miku to continue snickering at him. He should have been glad that Miku wasn't going to tell the staff about what happened, even if he was not guilty of any crime. No one would listen to him. He would be kicked out and tossed away like litter if he brought the school any bad attention. He depended on the school for showers (it was rather unpleasant to shower in the cold rain) and the faulty vending machine in the corridor of the entrance was the only free food he could find. He didn't mind being used by the school as a poor example of a student as long as he could graduate. He didn't mind it when older students pointed to him to younger students and told him that they'd become like him if they didn't do their homework, or didn't join any clubs, or didn't receive good marks on their exams; he had been used for much worse.

"You really are a nuisance, Gaijin. You should be rotting away in a cell, after what you did to her," Miku hissed loudly, "but I guess the mental hospital realized you were a bigger burden before we all could see it for ourselves."

Len chewed the inside of his cheeks at the thoughts of the text messages. He clenched his fists slightly and unfurled them again as the sensation of needles prickled all over his shoulder. He groaned. "I didn't send those, Miku," Len stated quietly. He realized that Miku wouldn't believe him, and, desperate to get away from the enraged girl, he continued, "but I'm sorr-"

"I know you didn't send them."

Len frowned at what the girl said until his phone appeared in her slim hand, with a manicured nail tapping the cracked screen. He gawked at her.

"You should know better than to keep your trash in the library." Miku snapped. She held up his phone. "Although, I didn't know that maggots could use cellphones. How evolutionary! I'll have to write my next biology paper about you."

Len shuddered as the clothes pierced through his clothing, while Miku clutched his phone. She mistook Len's shuddering for fear and she grinned triumphantly. She glanced at the phone as the top of her lip curled upwards with disgust.

"Hopefully, this taught you a lesson," Miku said haughtily, gluing her eyes back onto Len. She suddenly gazed thoughtfully at him, and said, "Yet I doubt it. You never learn. Maggots are just too stupid to learn anything. Maybe spending time with Gakupo after school isn't doing you any good anymore? I think so."

With that remark, Miku held up the cellphone and kept her gaze on Len's forehead. Len cringed and clutched his eyes shut again all while cursing himself mentally for letting his cellphone get stolen by Miku, one of the people who hated him the most. He couldn't blame her, though, could he? She thought that he was responsible for her best friend's death, and Len knew that, in the end, everything was his fault. Even if a earthquake were to rattle Kahiru, it would still be his fault.

"Miku!"

Len's eyes snapped open at the sight of a girl of short stature and green hair.

'What is she-?'

"Miku, stop, we have to get to class."

"Gumi," Miku remarked tensely, keeping her eyes on Len, "this is only going to take two seconds."

"No, Miku, let it go. He's not worth your anger."

She said it so convincingly that Miku began to, after a few seconds of thought, lower her arm. She frowned at Len severely before turning back to Gumi. "You're right," she breathed out tiredly. "He's not worth anything. He's not even worth my anger."

"Let's head back to class, okay?"

Miku nodded quickly, before quickly casting her eyes on Len, then momentarily, at his cellphone. Without warning, her hand snapped toward the ground. Gumi's shoulders hitched as the cellphone exploded. Len stared at the abrupt mess blankly. Without another pause, Miku turned around and began walking to the school. Gumi followed her, but offered Len her sympathetic eyes before running into the school. Len saw, but his face didn't change, as he stared at the ruins of his cellphone.

She left. Len slowly picked himself up and the broken remnants of his cellphone. A distance away, he saw his backpack, crumbled and torn. He grunted as he walked to his backpack. He wrapped his hand around the shoulder pad and dragged it with him into the school. He couldn't afford to miss any more classes.

He had a math test to take, too.

"Did you see what Kaito did to Len?"

"Yes, I saw."

"You don't sound excited about it? Why?"

"Listen," Gumi groaned, "I'm tutoring practically all week now. It's nothing against you, but the last thing on my mind is how many grams of much protein Kaito must have had to eat per week in order to give Len such a 'powerful' punch. I heard enough about that during lunch."

Gacha sighed, disgruntled. "Yeah, I guess. I still can't believe that Gaijin did that to Miku. She's nuts, but I'd punch him too if he sent me a text calling me stupid."

Gumi nodded silently. "You were right. She's nuts."

"What did she do this time?" Gacha eagerly faced Gumi. Gumi frowned.

"I was referring to how she acted about this whole text-message fiasco."

"Oh." Gacha's shoulders slumped at the lack of gossip. "She really had a reason to be mad, though. She had a right to slap him. Heh, did you see what she did with the hand sanitizer?"

"I saw."

Gacha pouted at Gumi's reluctance to discuss what had occurred. "You need to loosen up. No, sorry, that sounded rude. You just look really stressed."

"I am." Gumi sighed. "I would love to 'loosen up', though."

"Girls like spas, don't they?" Gacha suddenly asked.

Gumi removed a strand of her hair that had caught itself in the corner of her mouth while she closed her textbook. "Uh, sure, I guess."

A sky smile crept onto Gacha's face, but he shrugged. "Just a suggestion."

"Well, it's the weekend. I can sort-of cool down now."

"You sound like you need it." Gacha nodded. "No offense."

"None taken. I'll see you around." Gumi went to wave Gacha goodbye, but stopped and said, "Good job on the math test, if I didn't say so in the beginning."

'And thank you for warning me about Miku.'

"You did. Thanks." Gacha smiled and waved. He departed. Gumi began gnawing her teeth into her lip and let the pain distract her.

'Stop doing that.'

She managed to stop herself from completely destroying her overworked bottom lip. She applied some chapstick over the dried cracks. She rubbed her lips together slowly.

'I have to talk to him. Is he even here, though? He couldn't have come into school after that.'

She stopped rubbing her lips and she clenched her hands. It unsettled her how Miku acted for the rest of the day, as if how she treated Len was no big deal. She acted as if he had deserved it. She didn't say anything to Miku regarding the incident- in fact, she kept away from the girl for most of the day. Seeing Len on the ground, with Miku's fist thrust into the air, holding Len's cellphone, after seeing all of that, distorted Gumi's perception of Miku. Gumi was suddenly glad that she didn't swallow any of Miku's pills- only God knew what was in them. She didn't know any longer if Miku's smile was genuine or hiding the rage she seemed to beat over Len whenever she could. Yet Miku's smile always seemed genuine whenever she talked to Gumi. She always talked to Gumi as if they had known each other for years- well, technically, they did, thanks to SeeU.

Everything was very confusing. It was frustrating. Gumi didn't like it.

The doors to the library groaned weakly. Gumi listened closely to the sound of plastic on carpet. She heard it soundly. Len came into her view, and he sat down in his usual seat. She stared at his back. She briefly wondered how many bruises were on the bumps of his spine from the fall he took. She wondered about his arm, too; she remembered watching him fall on his shoulder first. She was surprised, when she had watched him with shaky eyes, that she didn't hear a shatter.

Gumi was completely grateful that she stayed at the entrance to watch Miku. She felt like an idiot originally, as she stayed with the intention to comfort Miku. When the crowd disappeared and she saw Miku standing over Len, mocking him intentionally, her sympathy died. It was hard to speak to Miku as anger peaked inside of her, yet Gumi wondered how much of her anger was justified. Miku truly believed that Len killed Rin, at least, that was what Miku led her to believe. Yet Miku had stated it loudly, proclaiming Len's sins to God as if he was the judge of the courtyard. Miku had thought they were alone, too. It sounded like Miku was unaware, though she had no right to make Len more miserable than he already was, even if Miku thought it was justified. On the other hand, Miku also treated Gumi extremely well, even better than the people who were proclaimed to be her friends, making Gumi feel that her anger was further invalid.

Gumi frowned. 'If only Rin could tell me who the fuck turned her into ash, that'd make this issue a lot simpler.'

Rin seemed to make everything complicated. The confusing dreams, her hesitation to answer any of her questions, and that carrot cake; none of it was clicking. Perhaps it was still too early for anything to click for her. Gumi's eyes flickered to Len's back again. No one else was going to apologize for the hell he went through.

She stood up and walked. She walked up to him and stared at him firmly. He turned his head, his face still wearing the dull scowl, which made Gumi scowl herself. He was suffering and he wasn't going to admit it. Perhaps that was what had been angering her this whole time, all these confusing confrontations with him, as he avoided her aid and threw himself into his books to avoid discussing his poor image around the school. Gumi felt her cheeks redden.

"Stop hiding your pain."

His eyes stared into hers. She stared back, unwilling to cut her gaze off.

"I'm sorry."

Gumi pronounced those words clearly before him. He continued examining her with his eyes squinted and his lips a firm, pale line. She noticed marks of black and blue slowly swirling around his face, slinking up from underneath his jawbone like waves hitting a patch of sand. She almost slapped herself for taking her eyes off of his.

"Why did you do that?" Len asked flatly.

"Because Miku likes me, for some reason. I knew that she would listen to me, at least, to some degree. I didn't want to see you hurt."

Len pensively stared at the subtle curls at the ends of Gumi's hair. "She likes you," he mumbled. "because you remind her of Rin."

"She, well, admitted that to me. She tried to play it off, though."

"Don't break the image." Len cleared his throat. Gumi raised her eyebrow. "What you did was stupid. She'll hate you more if you don't live up to Rin's expectations."

"But I'm not Rin. I don't care. What she did to you with your cellphone was...fucking unbelievable. Why do you tolerate that bullshit?"

"I don't have a choice." Len seethed, and his face became punctured with anger. "If I act out even once, I will get kicked out, and then I'm utterly screwed. I need to pass, and that's it, and then I can go wherever. Up until graduation, I have to put up with it. You can't do anything about it."

"I can help you pass, though."

"True," Len admitted after a moment. "Considering I just bombed my math quiz, which wasn't a big surprise. I got a five out of thirty."

Gumi sucked her breath in. "How?"

"Didn't you know that I'm stupid?"

Gumi sighed sadly. "I can try. I can try and help you. I promise."

Another silence permeated the library. Len gently touched his injured jawbone.

"You should use the icepack," Gumi advised.

"Oh, yeah," Len bent down to open his back, and promptly threw the icepack at her and replying, "F-Y-I, I don't have a fridge."

"You don't?"

"No, I don't. You don't need to get worked up about it."

Gumi was baffled. "Where do you live?"

"None of your business." Len set his backpack down.

"I'll at least chill this for you. The nurse let me leave this in before I gave this to you. If I tell her that I have some sort of condition-"

"Don't bother. I have a key to the nurse's office anyway."

"Uh...why?" Gumi asked.

"When even the nurse refuses to treat your injuries, you get desperate." Len shrugged. He rolled his eyes at Gumi's raised eyebrows. "Yeah, I know, I suck."

"N- no, I just can't understand why the nurse doesn't even want to-"

"Are you forgetting who you're talking to?" Len snapped.

"But, you're innocent-"

"And who's going to believe you? Even if you think so, no one else does. In fact, how do you know that I'm innocent?"

He stared at her demandingly. Gumi swallowed the growing lump in her throat quietly. She thought over the possible reasons in her head until she decided to be truthful. "Because I know how it feels to be blamed for something you can't handle, for people to stare at you for something that wasn't your fault. I understand it. Why do you think I had to come here? Why do you think my brother doesn't hand around me? Hell, why do you think I don't hang around him?"

Len blinked and rubbed his neck. He began to pick at a scab that had formed and nonchalantly peeled it off. "You want to tell me why?"

"Maybe later. Maybe after graduation."

Len squeezed his lips together and sighed heavily through his nose. "Fine."

"Bring yourself and your math textbook right at this time on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays."

Len snorted. "And what if someone sees us?"

"I can't exactly bring you at my house where my brother can potentially see you. Wait, just- Piko hasn't said anything to you, has he? He's my brother. I just want to make sure he's not part of the problem."

"Piko?" Len maintained his steady gaze on Gumi. "I haven't even heard of him."

"Good," Gumi breathed a sigh of relief. "I don't want him hurting you."

"I can't imagine that he hasn't heard about me by now, though," Len said.

"Since you won't tell me where your house is, though, I guess we're stuck here, aren't we?"

Len pursed his lips together with narrowed eyes.

"I'll bring you food, too. I'll bring you bananas every time we meet. Does that make you feel better?"

Len kept his steely glare on Gumi. "Fine. Also, I tell you what food to get me."

Gumi permitted herself to smile. "No problem. Good boy."

'Good boy.'

Len clenched the edge of his seat to hold back a shiver from going up his spine. Gumi watched him carefully.

"I'll buy you a new cellphone, if that's still bothering you."

Len slowly scowled with ridicule at the suggestion. "Don't even bother."

Suddenly she was right next to him, tapping on the math textbook. "Don't you remember? It's a Friday."

Len smirked at her as she smiled deviously. "Then where's my food, Miss She-Thinks-She's-Clever?"

Gumi sighed when she remembered. "Yes, I promised. I'll buy you something from the vending machine."

Len almost wanted to mention that the lower shelf of vending machine was reachable, when the lid to the door was opened all the way and when the arm of the stealer was long enough. Fortunately, his arms were long enough. In fact, her arms looked long enough, too, but he was getting tired of eating so many potato chips. "Okay, sure."

"Any special requests?" She asked.

Len frowned. He didn't remember what else there was except for the usual water and chips that was on the lower shelf. "Anything but chips is fine. I'm not in the mood for chips."

"No problem."

She walked across the library, hopping onto the small flight of carpeted stairs. He watched with mild interest, but frowned. She would get tired of him eventually, or at least realize how revolting her was, but if this girl truly believed that he was innocent, then he might as well take what he could get, even if that only meant better snacks from the vending machine.

She decided to get him a package of chocolate pandas, and then purchased another package for herself. She retrieved her snack from the port. She opened it eagerly as her hunger caught up to her. Her eagerness over successfully managing to get the belief of Kagamine Len had caught up to her as well. In a celebratory act, she skipped down the hall as she popped a panda into her mouth. It was unfortunate as to how diminished he looked and how low his opinion of himself was, too, but she could only hope that it would only increase as soon as she managed to help him graduate out of the place he considered a hellhole. Gumi took a second panda out of her small package and slowed down her pace as she stared intently at the panda she held. Its arms were slightly crumbled, and its face was slightly distorted, with its black nose in place of his mouth and his brown eyes slightly off centered.

"I guess we can be screwed up together." Gumi replied to the panda.

She ate the panda, and realized that she and Len shared the poor self-esteem that nibbled them in the beginning of the morning and gobbled them up by midnight.

Tutoring went okay, Len supposed. He had learned enough fractions and pointless graphs. He occupied his mind for hours with math problems. His brain was now occupying itself with the death of his cellphone.

Len stared at the pieces of his electronic despondently. He couldn't even call it a cellphone anymore; it was officially garbage. Len rubbed the black and blue of his jaw and grimaced. He didn't deserve a phone in the first place, considering he was stupid enough to leave it on in the library. He didn't deserve anything, he repeated to himself, for doing something so stupid.

He sat in his dilapidated, pint-sized 'home', the only place that could protect him from the rain. He sighed when his eye caught the sight of water droplets dribbling down the crack from the ceiling. He dropped the pieces of his phone to the floor, forced himself off from his stool, and walked to his drawer. He jammed it open, looked through the clutter in the compartment, and took out the phone charger.

'So useless.'

He clenched it. "Stupid!" Len hissed and threw it to the ground. Upon realizing his mistake, he shut his eyes and began to count to three. He couldn't get angry. Anger led to more problems. If someone heard him yelling, someone would find him, eject him from the only home he had, and send him back to the orphanage. Len was determined to never to back there, never again.

She would never find him again.

Len picked up the cord to the charger and wrapped his fingers around it. He decided to keep it, in case it served any future purpose. He forced open the drawer again, only for the drawer to fall out completely and spill all over the ground.

'Cut me a fucking break.'

Len bit his lip to hold in his bubbling anger and began to pick up his fallen possessions. He shrugged when he found a small bag of chips in his pile of junk. He should have felt a bit more grateful for finding food, but eating salty potato chips every day was beginning to irritate his tongue. He set the chips aside and began to sort out his belongings as he put them in the drawer. Because of his desperate attempts to avoid harm, he always came home with bloodshot eyes. Most of the time, he gave himself the luxury of passing out on his damp blankets. He had forgotten the last time he had rummaged through his drawer.

Len's eyes widened when his fingers came in contact with something thin and rubbery. He quickly pulled it out of the small pile of objects to absorb the image with his eyes.

"Oh my God."

Len quickly attempted to straighten out any bends on the photo and wiped any dirt off the photograph. What he had found was more precious than the chips he had salvaged earlier. Len sat down and looked at the picture with awe as memories of him and the boy in the picture surfaced. He knew it was stupid for him to daydream. He never learned. Len could admit that. Sometimes, it was better for him to daydream and to suffer the consequences later for not being conscious of his surroundings, rather than to live in his pitiful reality. His mind recalled the orbs of neon lights and that floated around his head.

"Len, what do you want to go on first?"

"I don't know, Oliver." The carnival music sang in sync with the turning of the giant attraction in front of them. "I didn't even think we'd get this far."

"We're here, just like we promised. We both have four tickets. Use them wisely."

Len licked his dry lips to rehydrate them as he sweat nervously. "I'm afraid to go alone."

"I thought we planned on going on the rides together? Did you plan on ditching me, Len?" Oliver grinned and bumped into Len's shoulder purposely.

"No! Honestly, I didn't!"

"Len, I told you. You don't need to get worked up." Oliver looked into Len's eyes promisingly. Len watched blues and greens swirl around in Oliver's good eye, brighter than the neon colors that surrounded them. "No one will notice us here. I promise. We didn't take an hour and a half bus ride down here for nothing."

Len glanced at the Ferris wheel. He nodded unconsciously.

He heard Oliver laugh quietly. "Did you want to go on that?"

He watched the attraction circle around repeatedly. The seats of the Ferris wheel swung back and forth excitedly, eagerly asking them to join them.

"Could we?"

"Sure."

Len held the photo of them in front of the Ferris wheel. Oliver had shelled out the extra yen for them to get a picture of themselves. He was thankful for it; it was proof that Oliver wasn't a figment of his imagination. He was real, just as Len was. He was real.

Now he was gone.

Len couldn't blame him for leaving. Life was hard. Life was unfair to people like them. It was only fair to people like Miku and Gakupo, who used their crisp bills and the twinkle of their eyes to breeze through life. Oliver didn't like to think of it that way, but that was the truth. Life would always be brutally unfair to him, regardless of how innocent he was. Life always was difficult for Oliver, too, until he went away. He was probably living a much better life. Life was only a hurdle now for Len. He wished he had left with Oliver, but he didn't have a choice. Oliver left him because Len knew that he couldn't stand him. Nobody could stand him.

Len acknowledged that his soul was blacker than the coarse feathers of a crow. He was far from amiable. His attitude was severely revolting, with a personality so rotten that even decaying corpses would try to lift up their heavy limbs in order to escape him. His eyes held a type of dullness that displeased everyone. His irises were a harsher, unpleasant gray, nearly matching the slate tone of his skin. His lips were thin and his teeth lacked the pearly shimmer that his sister's held; his teeth were plain yet straight, and remained far from a yellow color as he used the bathrooms as school in order to keep up his hygiene (toothpaste was expensive, but a visit to the dentist's was even more so). His hands were cut and rough and exposed his misfortunes. His body was all cut up. Some were due to him, and some were from his schoolmates. His body, in short, was like a bad painting. The Director had said once that he was the 'bad side' of Rin, her darkness; the side that God had ripped from her in order to make her perfect. His birth was a mistake, he was told, a mistake that God forgot to toss away. He hated her, and she hated him, like everyone else did, except for Gumi, yet she would distance herself from him, like Oliver did. Even Rin began to pull away from him once she realized how much of an embarrassment he was. He couldn't exactly blame her. He had been a terrible brother to her. He was in general just an insult to humanity. He was already using Gumi to buy him food- but she was only going to abandon him, and he'd be left with nothing again. He deserved something for all the trouble he went through just to survive.

'You deserve nothing. Crazy boys get nothing.'

Len felt the picture in his hand and put it into the drawer. He could never get himself to toss it away. He couldn't forget Oliver, even if Oliver had forgotten about him. He had to be grateful for someone, something. He just had to be thankful that he was alive, just like everyone told him. Even, when he woke up hours later from a nightmare involving the person who had subjugated him to his hell, he reminded himself to be grateful, even while he was a sweaty, trembling, and swollen-eyed mess. He reminded himself to be grateful, even when his pain had finally caught up to him and forced him to scream silently. As his jaw burned from being forced open, Len wondered if this was the searing pain that Rin had felt when she was burned to the bone. He then reminded himself again to be thankful for being alive, to appreciate that he was allowed to exist, even if all he wanted to do was the opposite.

END PART 2

Uh yeah. Len got his ass whooped. Whoops / (don't kill me... ..)

Anyway, thank you all for the reviews and your patience, guys, it means a lot. C: I'v been busy with college and stuff, so I'm sorry that I'm not updating as frequently, but I hope this chapter gives you some more info about...everything, I guess, haha. Part 3 will be a lot more detailed and have more Rin in it, and will contain more memories/flashbacks. I also know that a lot of you seem to hate Gakupo...but he's honestly not the one you're going to hate the most. I've barely mentioned the people who screwed over Len the most, and in fact, I haven't even mentioned one of the main 'villains' Scorned. So, yeah, be a bit more gentle with Gakupo...he's a dick, but he's not as bad as a lot of other characters are going to be. Didn't you just read about what Miku did? Yeah, you should be more concerned with her rather than Gakupo...

Anyway, thanks for reading! Part 3 will be up within a few weeks! owo