You never know what you have until you lose it, and once you lose it, you can never get it back.

Karin had stormed out of the office as tears had swelled in her eyes. Pushing the doors to the house open, she ran down the steps into the darkening sky of the afternoon. Clouds hung overhead as she turned left down the street, ignoring the stares that she received. She hastily wiped the few tears that had escaped down her cheeks in an angered swiped of her sleeve.

Pull yourself together, dammit. What are you crying over?

It was only a month after the brutal killing of her family, and after being released from the hospital a week earlier (she had no injuries, but they wanted to make sure she was okay mentally) she had been shepherded to many homes by that Omaeda person, who always seemed to be eating something, and had a dislike for Karin, trying to find her new 'home'. Every person would whisper about her, stare with tears in their eyes, before quietly coming up with an excuse to turn her away. "We have too many children already" or "We only take boys" or any number of other excuses had been heard by her in the course of a week, and she was sick of it. Not that she needed any of them. Being only fourteen, she was 'too young' to live alone, and with her family's killer still on the loose, the police were afraid of her being targeted.

But what kind of robber would want to kill me?

Karin ran into an unfamiliar part of the town, getting jostled by all of the people who occupied the sidewalk. She slowed her pace when she was sure that she would be lost in the crowd, and took a deep breath. The tears had stopped flowing, and if you were to look at her, you would only barely see the tracks the tears had left, the puffiness of her eyes. If you looked at her eyes, you would only see their color. All of the spark they had held a month previous was lost, an eternal state of emptiness seeping in.

To those who didn't know better, one would think she had died along with her family.

(Toshiro):

"Toshiro…get out of the bathroom already."

"…"

"…Toshiro?"

"…"

"Toshiro? Come on, get out! What are you doing?" His voice went from angry to pleading. After a minute of pounding with no response, the little six-year old ran through the house to his mother.

"Help! Toshiro's in the bathroom and he won't come out! He's not answering, and I can't hear anything!"

Two sets of feet pounded up the stairs, and a new voice joined in the little boys cries.

"Toshiro? Open this door right now!"

"..."

A crash sounded through the house as the door that previously led to the bathroom was unhinged, and a scream followed suit.
"TOSHIRO!"

Said boy was draped over the counter, his face in the sink. An empty bottle of pills lay in his hands, a few still rolling on the counter. His breath came in quick, short breaths, and a sheen of sweat was covering his forehead. His eyebrows were drawn together as his body tried to keep him alive.

"Yuichi, call an ambulance!" The woman didn't wait for him to go, wasting no time in pulling the dying boy to the floor. He groaned softly, and she felt as though she was going to puke. "Toshiro."

No response.

"Toshiro," she said again, this time lightly shaking the boy. He groaned and she almost sighed in relief. If he had the energy to groan then he wasn't completely gone. "Stay with me. Stay with me."

It seemed as though no time and forever had passed before the white haired boy was taken away by paramedics, and she was bombarded with questions. 'What did he take', 'How long ago did he o'd?'

"I don't know," she cried, wanting nothing more than to see Toshiro.

"I don't know."

(Karin)

Karin had been wandering the town for a few hours now, following the throng of people for the majority, never choosing her own direction to go. She glanced up at the sky, and was greeted by a rain drop to the forehead. The storm quickly progressed, and wind snaked its way through the crowd of people, a crowd, which Karin saw, was quickly beginning to dwindle. That was when Karin realized that running away hadn't been such a smart idea.

"Crap," she muttered to herself, involuntarily shivering in the street. She knew it was futile to get out of the rain now; most of the stores were closed and she was already soaked to the bone. She continued walking in the direction she had started, finding nothing else to do.

The city slowly transformed into suburbs, and the roads got darker as the street lights came in farther intervals. She didn't mind though. With all of the people whom she had visited, she reveled in the silence which was only broken by her footsteps and the pattering of the rain from the heavens.

(Toshiro)

It was unexpected when, after taking a bottleful of pills, to find yourself waking up.

Dammit. I knew I should have done it in my room. Damn Yuichi and his small bladder.

Doctors looked at him with guarded expressions, and Toshiro could tell what they were thinking: 'Look, it's the kid who tried to kill himself.'

Toshiro would have said something if he wasn't attacked by his aunt. She latched onto him as if he was going to die, because for all she knew, he might.

"Don't you ever, ever do that again," she hissed in his ear before breaking down into sobs.

Toshiro sat with his arms frozen at his sides. His breath hitched in his throat, but whether it had to do with tears or the lack of oxygen going to his brain, he wasn't sure.

"Ma'am," one of the doctors said as she saw Toshiro's pained looked. "Will you sign the medical forms?"

This got her to cry even harder. "I can't. I just can't!"

"Ma'am?" The doctor, one Retsu Unohana, said, this time with a little more kindness in her voice. "What's the matter?"

"I can't do it anymore!" She threw her hands up. "All of the doctor visit, the psychologists, everything!I can't deal with any more calls from the police, telling me that I have to pick my nephew up, that he's lucky to be alive! It's too much. It's too much." The last part came out as a whisper. Her eyes turned to Toshiro, full of remorse and sadness. "I'm sorry."

And she left.

Just like everyone else did. Sooner or later, don't we all end up alone?

The doctors all looked at each other with various degrees of shock on their face. How could this lady just give up on him? What would make her go that far?

"Don't worry," Unohana said to the boy, "we'll find you a home." The boy didn't answer, staring out the frosted window with a troubled look on his face.

(Karin)

She was hungry. She had no idea how long she had been walking, but it felt like it had been forever. Fatigue threatened her, and she stumbled through the early morning crowd with her eyes half-open. She shivered in her rain-drenched coat. The rain had long since stopped, but to her it felt like it was still pouring.

Karin fell to the ground as she was nudged by an unseen person. She fell to the ground, landing in a heap. She was too afraid to move, too tired to care. Tears leaked from her eyes, when suddenly, someone bent down to her.

He had white hair, and a concerned look crossed his face. She flinched away from his touch, and he withdrew his hand slowly. "Can you walk?" he asked.

Karin just sat there, staring past the man. Before she could even think, the man had picked her up.

"Don't worry," he said, "you're safe."