Silver Cyanide, you better be reading this chapter! (Chances are she isn't reading this chapter. So somebody, tell her to read this chapter. Please?)

So, I'm sure you guys know the drill by now. I watch a few animes, get obsessed with one of them, then give or take a month or two, and I switch to another anime, get obsessed, then another, and another, and another…

Which is why I haven't really been updating lately; I've been switching back and forth a lot lately, but I am very, very happy and proud to announce that I am back in the Prince of Tennis craze! Plus, all my finals and state exams are over. (I'm freeeeeeeee—!) So, lots and lots of updates coming up, 'kay?

Let's get back to the more interesting stuff—like who's getting murdered next. (Speaking of which, you guys are going to hate me after this, aren't you? This is like, my third favorite character, I swear! Niou and Shishido and Choutaro were among my favorites, too.)

Yuushi refused to lose his composure.

He should've expected Gakuto's abrupt leave, he really should have. Gakuto was always one to be spontaneous—and as Gakuto liked to remind him, he'd changed. What right did he have to predict anything? He was another old classmate, another high school graduate to him.

So he really shouldn't have been as upset by it as he was.

What was he expecting out of it, anyway? Gakuto, to him, was another old classmate, another high school graduate. And, to be fair, Yuushi had probably changed, too. There was no need to get so worked up about it. Gakuto had a busy schedule; he wanted to see people, meet people, catch up. Yuushi shouldn't have expected anything else. Gakuto had every right to meet other friends. They were—were, were—best friends. He'd always played the role of the best friend well.

And yet, that didn't sound quite right.

He was fully willing to admit that he felt strongly for Gakuto, for new Gakuto. New Gakuto was—well, like him. It was easy to say he'd grown up, matured, become an adult. But that wasn't Gakuto.

Paradoxes. He didn't like them much.

Yuushi sat back in his chair and stared out the window. It was dark already; he'd returned to the office after the incident with Gakuto, and settled for fiddling with his pen. It'd been such a beautiful day, if the events of the day weren't taken into account. And now it was a cloudless night, the stars perfectly visible and the moon perfectly full.

Perfection. It was unattainable, but he used the word, regardless.

The data on the case was scattered across his desk—papers and witnesses, contacts and phone numbers. He hadn't bothered reading them, because he was preoccupied, so preoccupied. All because of Gakuto. He didn't understand it; he knew finding the murderer was far more important. Three tennis teams—or what was left of those tennis teams—depended on him. It wasn't tennis, wasn't a game anymore. These were lives, lives at stake. And however cheesy it was, he knew it was true.

He knew, he knew perfectly well.

And he almost laughed at the irony.

The door opened, and in walked Hiyoshi, carrying a portfolio of files and looking particularly grim. Hiyoshi probably hadn't gotten much sleep the past few days, either. He'd accompanied Yuushi on almost all of his late-night treks, and interrogations. However tired or frustrated he was, Yuushi knew the case came first—and although the questions (and answers) hadn't been of much help so far, he was grateful to Hiyoshi for having come with him. "Oshitari-san, there's—"

"Who's dead?"

It was bold, almost rude. Hiyoshi looked like he'd expected it. "Marui Bunta," he said slowly. "Of RikkaiDai. He died just an hour ago."

"Just an hour?" Yuushi repeated, startled. "Where?"

"At Yume's Restaurant. He was having dinner with somebody, I believe, and he just—collapsed, on the spot." Hiyoshi sounded perplexed; had they not determined the cause of death, yet?

"Russian roulette?" Yuushi guessed. That was, after all, what the serial killer had chosen to stick with for the past three murders.

"No bullet shots," Hiyoshi replied. "They're still determining the cause of death. It seemed pretty spontaneous."

Spontaneous was the wrong word for it.

Yuushi stood up and reached for his jacket. "We should go, then."

By then, it had to be at least nine PM, but there were people on the streets, anyway. He walked with a brisk pace, Hiyoshi—for once—struggling to keep up. Yuushi wasn't in the best of moods.

There was quite a commotion in front of the restaurant. Yuushi shouldn't have been surprised. The case had drawn a great deal of attention—particularly since it'd yet to be solved. A serial killer; he supposed he would've been interested, too.

He made his way to the center of the crowd, Hiyoshi close behind. "Another person," Yuushi said to himself, and nodded at the police officer. There'd been talk of bringing the government's personal officers and intelligence agencies into this, but Yuushi hoped to end it before it got that far. He didn't care much about the glory—being an investigator, things were bound to get mixed up, and chances were, you wouldn't end up with credit, anyway. But it was a personal case—his friends, his teammates, his rivals.

Why was someone killing these people, anyway?

He supposed there would've been reason to kill Niou; a celebrity made enemies, and Niou had a tendency to make more enemies than the average person. But Choutaro had been a saint. Shishido had been killed almost immediately after. Marui, too. He wasn't in any ridiculously high position, and he didn't have any enemies.

Yuushi assumed so, anyway.

"Get out of the way," an officer was saying. "This is a professional investigation."

But nobody seemed to be listening.

There was a girl, a young lady in the midst of it all, pushing past people and demanding entry into the restaurant. "Where is he?" she screamed. "Let me through! I need to find him, I need to—!" Her eyes were rimmed with red, and Yuushi realized she'd been crying. She screamed, screamed hysterically.

Yuushi thought she looked familiar, with the long silver hair and brilliant blue eyes. He might have seen her somewhere before—she had a memorable face, and her voice was familiar. She pushed and shoved past all the spectators and pounded on the restaurant doors furiously. Her expression was wild, but she was rather pretty, he thought, and walked up to her. "Are you, by any chance, Niou Masaharu's sister?"

The girl stopped her screaming for a moment, and gave Yuushi a look. "I am," she said thinly. She was polite, at least. Slightly. But her temper was short. "And I'd like it if you'd get out of my way."

Her tone was biting. Yuushi nodded briefly at her. "If you'd like to come through, follow me," he said. The girl seemed bewildered, but did as he said.

The restaurant wasn't a mess—it seemed perfectly ordinary. Perfect. He was learning to despise that word. The only thing amiss was the lack of people. As far as he knew, this was a fairly popular restaurant. The owner greeted him warily, and led him to a table near the back. The girl ran past him, looking panicked.

Yuushi heard a scream—but it wasn't an angry one, this time. It was shrill, still shrill, and still hysterical. But she sounded miserable, despairing. He walked to the table in the back, and saw that Niou's sister was on her knees, wailing, clutching someone's pale, pale hand.

Marui.

There was no blood in sight, but he was too pale to be human, too pale to be alive. His mouth was slightly agape, lips almost blue, and his violet eyes were lifeless, glassy and dulled. His posture was slack, his head tossed back, slumped in his seat. He looked sort of like he was asleep—with his eyes opened.

The girl wailed again, a loud keening sound. "You can't," she pleaded, shaking Marui's arm frantically. "Not you, too. I can't, I can't! I lost Masaharu already, you can't do this to me, you idiot, how could you do this to me—" She was crying again, hysterically crying. "Come on, Bunta, wake up! Wake up, you moron, you idiot, you stupid, stupid, stupid—"

Yuushi wanted to cry with her, and nudged Hiyoshi. "Call his family, and the RikkaiDai tennis team," he said quietly. The tennis team was like a second family; however dysfunctional it was, they'd been together for years, nearly a decade. Hiyoshi gave a quick nod, a pained glance toward Marui, and stepped aside.

A police officer stepped up to him. "We have a witness."

Inui's glasses glinted. "Good afternoon, Oshitari."

"Inui?" he asked slowly. "Why are you . . .?"

Inui took a deep breath, and looked mournfully at Marui. "I was having dinner with him," he said with difficulty. "I saw him die."

Yuushi sighed. "Then you'll have to come with me." He gestured for Inui to follow him, and walked deeper into the restaurant.

Inui was silent the entire walk there, and Yuushi couldn't determine whether or not it was out of shock. Seeing somebody die—right in front of him, nonetheless—had to have been a startling experience. Marui, he knew, was a vibrant person; how could he have died of something so—so quiet?

Thinking back to the restaurant, Yuushi decided there couldn't have been many places for the murderer to hide. A bullet shot would've drawn attention; and that was already eliminated, anyway. But why there? Assuming the murder was premeditated, the murderer would've had so many other opportunities to strike. Why at a restaurant? It was a popular restaurant, too; there were bound to be witnesses.

But then, in a popular restaurant, with so many people—what were the chances? Anything could have been passed off as ordinary.

The room they went to was completely silent. It was probably one of those private dining rooms Atobe liked to reserve so much, and from the looks of it, it hadn't been used in a while. Yuushi seated himself in a mahogany, velvet-coated chair, and motioned for Inui to do the same.

"So?"

"We were having dinner," Inui repeated. "He invited me. I thought it random, but I didn't see any reason to say no. So I went. Everything was normal; we ordered, made small talk. He asked me how my company was going, and such. It was going smoothly. Then we ordered, we ate, and made some more small talk. I didn't see much point to it."

Yuushi frowned. "I believe you," he said slowly. "But that's not a detailed enough account."

Inui was silent for a moment, then replied, "I can give you a detailed account, if you'd like. But you may want to take out a notepad and pen." Without further warning, he continued, "I walked into the restaurant at 7:13 PM. Marui was already outside, leaning against the left column of the restaurant. He gave me a forty-two degree wave in greeting, and I followed him to the eighth table of the restaurant. There were approximately fifty people already present in the restaurant, and they paid us no mind. I sat in the seat facing him, exactly twenty-nine feet from the kitchen, and he sat thirty-four feet from the kitchen. Our order was taken at 7:19 PM. I went to the restroom, and returned at 7:23. We spoke of irrelevant things, like the weather and the tennis circuits for approximately seventeen minutes. Then our order came, and we ate. He ordered lemon iced tea, a strawberry parfait, and a Caesar salad. I ordered pasta and lemon iced tea. We spoke some more. The waiter asked if we'd like anything else at 7:40. We said no. At 7:52, Marui collapsed. I assume something was affecting either his thymus or his pituitary, because his breathing was labored and his lips twitched. The manager tried giving him resuscitation, but didn't succeed."

He looked at Yuushi's notes, which were written neatly, word for word on the notepad. "Impressive note taking."

"Thank you," Yuushi said briefly. "Did you notice anything out of the ordinary, at all?"

Inui shook his head. "I apologize."

Yuushi hesitated. "If you could," he said slowly, "do you know who that girl was? The one with silver hair and blue eyes. She's Niou's sister, I believe."

"Oh, her." Inui nodded. "That's Niou Haruka. She's Niou's elder sister by barely a year. Her blood type is A, she was born on January thirteenth—"

"Why is she here?"

Inui hesitated. There was obvious pity in his tone when he replied, "I believe she—cared very deeply for Marui."

Yuushi should have guessed; it must have been hard on her. Cared very deeply, huh? He thought back to Niou's sister with a sense of pity. Had Marui reciprocated? Yuushi, for a moment, hoped he hadn't realized the girl's feelings. It was painful to live knowing one's feelings weren't reciprocated, but a thousand times more painful to know the person loved you in return, and then have that person taken away from you. The poor, poor girl—to have lost the two men she loved most, in such a short period of time.

She had nobody but herself, now.

It was six AM. People were just beginning to wake, heading off to work. Yuushi had spent the night at his office, but he didn't wake—because he didn't sleep. And now he was walking around the streets, watching as civilians roamed the streets, rushing to catch the bus or the train.

Some time after the investigation, the medical experts had informed Yuushi that it was death by poison. Someone poisoned him—specifically, his glass of lemon iced tea. He imagined it would've been much more painful, dying by poison.

Cyanide. Cyanide poisoning. Haven't you read the mystery books, Marui? Yuushi thought sarcastically. Didn't you realize your tea smelled like bitter almonds? Didn't you see it?

Cyanide, silver cyanide. Poured into his glass, glinting like death. Death in a cup, that's what it was. Death in a goddamn cup.

He could've punched someone. It was such a waste—four people, now, with so much potential. Gone.

Cyanide poisoning was that much more deathly. A bullet shot would've killed him instantly. He would've had a split second of fear—and then, nothing. But cyanide! He had to have realized it, realized it a second too late. He would've had to lie there in fear, fear for three hundred seconds, five minutes of torture, waiting for the poison to set in, letting the poison set in, feeling the poison set in. He would've felt ill, realized that he couldn't breath, realized that something was tampered.

And he would've realized that there was nothing to be done about it.

The RikkaiDai tennis players had mixed reactions. Yukimura and Sanada were both burning sadness and cold fury, and Jackal in particular had been devastated by the loss of one of his best friends. Kirihara was hysterical, and Yagyuu had to stop him from punching Marui's pale, pale face.

Niou, Yuushi thought, would've been miserable. They were best friends, he knew—the two of them had been extremely close. They'd both been two of the most lively people in the group. And they were both dead.

He couldn't quite grasp it. Four deaths, four deaths, four deaths—it played and replayed in his head, like a broken record. If he didn't solve it quickly, he knew, he might be next. It surprised him that he hadn't been murdered yet—there hadn't even been any attempts. He was, after all, the one trying to solve case. He should've been first.

And he was trying to solve the case; he'd made a halfhearted effort to wrap his head around Marui's death. It occurred to him that Inui may have been the murderer—he was in the most opportune position to do so. But surely someone like Inui would know better than to attempt murder in such a crowded place, especially if it was premeditated. And something about this murder didn't quite fit in with all the rest. He wasn't sure what.

And here he was, wandering in circles. It was early morning when he first walked out, and before he knew it, he'd been walking for two hours. Those who had the day off (or had the luxury of starting work late) were chatting, laughing with friends and strolling.

Yuushi meandered.

He didn't know how much longer he could deal with this, deal with anything, deal with everything. He wasn't a morning person, and his thoughts were still swampy. So he didn't think, just moved. Most people didn't give him so much as a glance, and for that he was grateful.

"Sorry you can't trust me."

"You're too tense."

"I'm Gakuto. You're Yuushi. I'll always be Gakuto, and you'll always be Yuushi."

And soon he found himself back at the park. It was near the restaurant, he realized, to his dismay. Only two blocks away. He could've gone there, could've gotten there in no time. Marui wasn't a personal friend of his—but another murder, another person . . . I could've stopped it, if I'd known.

He walked aimlessly, retracing his steps. There was nothing more to do, at this point—he had the data, he had whatever he needed to solve the case. But he was putting it off, off and off and off.

Yuushi really didn't know why.

A flash of red caught his attention. It was wine-red, cranberry red—Yuushi turned around and saw Gakuto, passing by. He was walking with—was that Hiyoshi? What were they doing together? He hadn't realized they were still in touch.

It was; they were chatting amiably, and Gakuto was laughing, carefree. They both had ice cream cones in hand, and Yuushi briefly wondered if it was a—

He hadn't seen Gakuto like that since he was fourteen. Why now? Why there? Hiyoshi seemed to be telling some sort of story, making wild hand gestures and imitating some sort of action hero. Gakuto laughed along and added some hand movements of his own.

And suddenly, they were walking quietly again, talking about something warmly and fondly. No awkwardness, nothing different; and Yuushi felt something clench. Something like a mix of anger and disappointment. But it wasn't either of them, not really. He'd only felt this once before, back in middle school, when Gakuto was paired up with Hiyoshi for the Nationals. He hadn't minded; his coach knew best, and even he'd agreed with the strategy. But he hadn't liked it, hadn't wanted it. He never said it, of course—but it was there, all the same.

Gakuto's ice cream melted, and some of it dripped onto his collar. Hiyoshi laughed, and Gakuto gave a halfhearted retort. Yuushi watched, just watched as Hiyoshi took a napkin and wiped it off.

Don't touch him, he thought. You can't touch him.

They were still laughing, Gakuto not making much of an effort to push him away.

Don't let him touch you.

But who was he to think those thoughts? What right did he have?

(Who was he to Gakuto, anyway?)

(Just someone?)

(Anyone?)

He watched them for a moment longer, wishing Gakuto would be as carefree with him, wishing Hiyoshi wasn't so close to him, wishing Hiyoshi would leave, hurry up and leave. They were silly wishes, and he hoped for them anyway.

But Hiyoshi stayed, kept talking, kept laughing, and Yuushi was the one to leave. It wasn't until five blocks of walking later that he realized he was jealous.

Jealous of whom? Hiyoshi? Maybe. He didn't ponder the 'why's. But it occurred to him that might also have been jealous of Gakuto, for being able to be so—happy.

Yuushi hated this jealousy. He especially hated it because it was a false sort of jealousy, not passionate enough to truly be called envy, but not faint enough to be passed off as nothing. It wasn't in him to be jealous; he was no Atobe, but people were supposed to be jealous of him, to want to be him. He was jealous, he knew. This was jealousy.

And yet, he didn't want to do much about it.

It occurred to him some time ago that he might have been in love, but only now could he disprove that hypothesis. He cared very much for this new Gakuto, enough to be jealous. He'd seen Gakuto with Hiyoshi, happy without him, and he'd been jealous. But he didn't love him, and he didn't care enough to go over there, to drag Gakuto away from Hiyoshi and claim him for himself.

That moment in the dance club, Yuushi had caught a glimpse of the Gakuto he was in love with. Dancing, laughing, outgoing-carefree and brash, reckless to a virtue. He had wanted to dance there forever, to never go back, and to never let go.

Gakuto, Gakuto, Gakuto. He had considered asking him out. But Gakuto had shown no particular interest in him, and after seeing him with Hiyoshi, happy, so happy-Yuushi wasn't sure if he ever would. Besides, asking out this Gakuto would be a failure. It was a trap, a paradox, a cul-de-sac. It was a trap, he thought.

He could have rambled in circles, ranted and argued and debated with himself for hours. In the end, it came down to only this: There wasn't anything to be done about it. New Gakuto, it seemed, was here to stay. And Yuushi would be doomed to liking him, never being able to love him, and still being jealous, so jealous-but without the passion to do anything about it.

And never had he once thought that he'd be the one caught, the one left behind, the one chasing after Gakuto, never close enough and always too far. That Gakuto, loudmouthed and rude, all sharp edges and brash retorts-

And this Gakuto, quiet and dignified, all refined points and subtle finesse. He liked this Gakuto, he really did-it was everything he could've wished for; someone practical, elegant, a high society type, artistically talented, with a Midas touch. This Gakuto was perfect, and he was fond of him, so fond of him. He'd never liked someone quite so much before. He was jealous of anyone who got near him.

But something was lacking.

There was a sparkle missing, flashiness lacking, rudeness and recklessness and silliness and all-missing. And there was a sensation missing, a jumping of the heart, a clench of the stomach, a dizziness and a happiness and a sort of relaxation, all missing. He realized now why he hadn't noticed his feelings before.

He was awfully fond of this new Gakuto. He liked this new Gakuto, liked him very much.

He wished he could love him. But this Gakuto wasn't the one he was in love with; this Gakuto, he knew, had everything but potential. With him, Yuushi could never be sure. With the old Gakuto—rude, loud, brash Gakuto—even if Gakuto ran away from him, said he hated him, followed Hiyoshi to the park without him—

Just thinking back to the park made him upset. He could've done something. Walking in the park like that, no care in the world. Being so close to a murder site and not even realizing it!

He was only a few feet away from his penthouse, now—he stopped walking. People stared at him, wondering why he had such a stricken look on his face.

Gakuto, he realized. They were at the park, the day of the murder. Then Gakuto . . .

Left. He'd left.

The park was a few blocks from the restaurant. Anyone would've had ample opportunity to—he could've—

Gakuto, you—?