When he opened his eyes, he was somewhere else entirely.
"Oh!" A boy with long, white-streaked purple hair peered down at him. "He's awake!"
He sat up, wincing at the sharp pain stabbing through his skull. "What... where... am I...?"
"You're in the living room of the Hade family," said a girl who looked creepily like the boy, crossing the room and coming to sit next to him on the couch.
He clenched and unclenched his cramped fists, surprised at how tense his muscles were. Was that normal?
"Seems like you found some important information," she continued, still looking at him expectantly.
He felt kind of lost. "Did I?"
"Aki..."There was a petite girl with pure white hair and eyes that looked almost – red? - in the hallway, looking straight past him and gazing hard at the girl sitting next to him on the couch. There seemed to be a warning in her voice."He's too confused."
That was when the man in the police uniform stalked into the room, coming to stop in front of him and crossing his arms. "What were you thinking?" he ranted, his eyes flashing. "You just strolled into the forest, alone, when you KNEW Jonathan's body would most likely be there… For all you know the murderer was still there as well! You could have been killed! You probably didn't even stop and think for so much as a second what we all thought when we saw you lying there, not moving, next to the corpse—"
"Why don't we figure out what happened first before we start yelling at him," Aki interjected. Then she turned to him, looking at him with those same expectant eyes."Tell us everything, Kangai."
He played with a strand of hair nervously. "Can I just... ask one thing first?"
"Of course,"she said brightly.
"What's a Kangai?"
- 0 – 0 – 0 -
The silence that followed his question was so charged that he began to fidget with the hem of his t-shirt. "Did I say something wrong?"
"'Scuse us, Kan, we're going to have an executive meeting... We'll be right back." And with that, Aki grabbed the hands of the purple-haired boy and the petite girl, and began dragging them out toward the kitchen. She jerked her head at the policeman, signaling for him to follow as well. He nodded, seeming sort of shell-shocked.
He mulled over that. "Is Kangai my name?"
"What, don't you like it?" she asked, looking slightly offended.
He tried it out in his head. "No, I don't. It's a dumb name, isn't it?"
Aki let out a very forced laugh. "I guess so... We'll be right back, Kan. Don't move."
Kangai looked around the living room, and for the first time a sense of loss crept into his mind. He folded and unfolded his hands. "I should remember all of you, shouldn't I."
She turned back to him. There was something unreadable in her expression, but it seemed kind enough. "...We'll be back soon."
- 0 – 0 – 0 -
They were indeed back soon. They seated themselves around him, staring at him with a sort of helplessness that made him feel uncomfortable.
As he looked back at each of them in turn – the boy, the white-haired girl, the policeman – they looked away as if they'd been caught doing something wrong. The only one who held his gaze was Aki, who put a hand over his own. Kangai – the name felt weird even in his head – thought at first that it was comforting gesture, but she seemed to be concentrating on something. Suddenly she flinched and pulled her hand away.
"I – I'm sorry," he said, not knowing what he was sorry for.
Her frustrated look disappeared with an almost audible snap, replaced with a carefree smile. "What're you sorry for? So, can you tell us what you remember?"
"I... What if I don't remember very much?" he asked, trying to ignore the staring from the other three people in the room.
"That's okay!" she said cheerfully.
"What if I don't remember anything at all?"
Her smile faltered. "Nothing?"
He shook his head.
There was a short, uncomfortable silence.
"Well, then!" she said loudly, as if to dispel the gloominess that had descended on the group. "Better start from the beginning. I'm Aki Mizutani, and this is my twin brother Naoki."
"H-hello," said Naoki, shooting a nervous smile at him.
"This is Detective Mikolaj Gurski. He's, uh, part of our investigation team."
Detective Gurski rolled his eyes but didn't say anything. Kangai nodded thoughtfully to himself.
"You don't seem very surprised that we're part of an investigation team," Aki murmured with a pointed smile in his direction.
He shrugged."Honestly, this is all completely new... I feel like I'm in someone else's life. I don't think anything you say would surprise me at this point."
"Probably best," she said approvingly. "This is Li Mei. She's...well. She's a friend of yours. We all are." She paused, looking at Detective Gurski. Then she added, "Well, close enough to it, anyway." The detective rolled his eyes again, but there seemed to be the barest hints of a smile on his face.
"So what happened to me? I went looking for the body and I got knocked out?"Kangai asked.
She frowned at him. "We're not entirely sure what happened, what with your loss of memory and all. Hopefully it will come back soon. Something tells me whatever you found was a major piece of the puzzle."
"Maybe that's why they knocked him out," Naoki suggested. "Maybe the murderer saw him figuring out something important and wanted to make sure Kangai stayed quiet."
"But the murderer had a gun," Detective Gurski mused, putting a hand to his chin. "If he'd wanted Kangai silenced he had a much more reliable, not to mention much more permanent, way of doing it than just knocking him out."
"It's also weird that he didn't have any injuries," Aki piped up. "Which means that if he was knocked out, it was by some sort of chemical means. Maybe a side effect of the chemical is amnesia?"
Kangai found himself zoning out a lot of the conversation that followed. He was so tired... He leaned back against the couch and allowed his eyes to wander only to meet the gaze of the white-haired girl (Li Mei, his brain supplied), gazing at him with open hatred.
Well, that was interesting.
He smirked at her and raised a finger to his lips. Shhh...
Her eyes flashed. She stood so fast that she seemed to blur, and promptly stalked from the room. The door slammed behind her.
Kangai allowed the wide grin to spread for the briefest of moments, while the others were still distracted. This was going to be fun.
Aki, Naoki, and Gurski paused in their rapid-fire debate about Kangai's current situation. "Is she all right?" came Naoki's timid voice.
"I don't know," said Aki uncertainly.
Her gaze flickered to Kangai for a moment and he looked back at her, innocently confused. Aki smiled apologetically at him and got to her feet. "I'm going to go see what's up."
"Wait!" he cried, grabbing her sleeve. She looked around at him, surprised. Naoki and Gurski were looking a little bit taken aback as well. He was probably getting out of character again. Oh, well. That's what amnesia is for, isn't it? "I don't understand... Someone tried to kill me? Where are my parents? And" - now for the kicker - "w-why do I remember touching Jonathan's body and passing out? I don't understand anything..." He put his face in his hands, smiling despite himself. Even he was impressed by his own performance.
The couch dipped under Aki's weight as she sat back down. Yesss! "You remember," she said, a definite note of hope in her voice. "Do you remember anything after that?"
Uhhh... After passing out? What was that supposed to mean? "No..."
She sighed. "Where do I begin?" it wasn't a rhetorical question. She was looking at her brother.
Naoki tilted his head. "Maybe start with the kansei."
Detective Gurski was looking between them. "'Kansei'?" he repeated.
Aki nodded, completely ignoring the detective. "We need to talk privately." She took Kangai's wrist and pulled him gently off the couch. "Naoki, can you talk to Li Mei? Try to find out what's upsetting her." Naoki nodded and headed toward the kitchen. "And Miko," Aki said, pointing at him, "we need to get this investigation on the road."
He nodded, still looking at her strangely. "I'm on it."
She turned before he could say any more. "Let's go, Kan. You've got a lot of catching up to do."