Sunday, August 28th

It was a tragic day for the Yasumori family—Nao had passed away. Masao happened to stumble across the funeral. He was as surprised as anyone to see this. Though he had more of a smug look on his face than one of sadness.

Mutou House

Masao burst through the door, "Tohru! Tohru! Did you hear?!" he turned his head to see Natsuno was in the same room, much to his displeasure. "What is it?" Tohru replied, "Nao died I saw the pole-bearers carrying her coffin across the trail!" Masao he yelled that in his usual grating voice. Tohru looked up from his game in surprise, "Wasn't she kinda young?" he said. "Shimizu died last month, remember? I think there's a strange disease going around!" Natsuno looked up from a magazine he was reading. He glanced at Masao but only briefly, before returning to his reading. This angered Masao and he turned a sharp glare at Natsuno.

"You know Natsuno…..you're cold. People are dying left and right and you don't so much as bat an eye. Are you just stupid or is there something actually wrong with you?" Masao sneered at Natsuno with a smug look. Natsuno continued to ignore him. But this only sent him into a frenzy.

"HEY KID, DON'T IGNORE ME! I'M OLDER THAN YOU!" Masao grabbed Natsuno's scruff and stared at him with gritted teeth and bulging eyes.

"The deaths don't bother me because I don't know these people, dude. Do you cry everytime you see a death on the news? Why should they bother me? Its sad people are dying sure, but since I didn't know them then they aren't worth much more than a fleeting thought to me, if I was an emotional wreck over every person I don't know who died, then I couldn't function in society." Natsuno spoke in a matter-of-fact tone. Masao mistook this for malice however and snorted back at him gripping his shirt tighter.

"But doesn't it bother you that Nao was so young? With a family too, she must have had so many regrets!" Masao snarled at him, the fire in his eyes burned at the mere sight of Natsuno.

"Young people die all the time. Like I said it's kind of sad but it's not my problem…it's a matter of probability." At that point Masao readied to punch Natsuno but Tohru grabbed him and held him back.

"Tohru! Let me at him! He's cold! A heartless monster, didn't you hear about how he rejected a memoir from Shimizu!? Why are you holding me back!?" Masao kept struggling but with every movement, Tohru held him tighter.

"I know he seems kind of cold, and he can act impulsively sometimes, but think man! He is also being rational right now! Let it go, for god's sake Masao! Let it go!" Tohru kept a tight hold of Masao and caught a couple of off kicks in the struggle. Masao finally calmed down and slammed the doors open.

"Fine….forget this! I'm out of here!" Masao walked off and slammed the door again. The whole house vibrated and some lint fell from the ceiling.

Natsuno didn't show it, but Masao bringing up the fact that he turned down Megumi's postcard stung as bad as a hornet, Did he have to say that?, he then changed his focus, Maybe I should spend the night, I can't sleep in my own house anyway.

Outside

"Aw, man." Tohru dropped ten yen under the vending machine outside his house.

"Hey, how's it going?" He turned to see blue-haired, young man right next to him, "Good, except I dropped some of my money."

"No problem, that's why I always carry a backscratcher with me!"

To Tohru's surprise, it actually worked.

"Wow, thanks, I'm Tohru Mutou by the way."

"I'm Tatsumi, I'm new here!"

"Why don't you come and visit some time?"

"Sure, is it alright if I bring a friend?"

"Of Course! See you soon!"

"Yeah, see ya...very soon." Tohru didn't notice that Tatsumi's left eye started to eerily glow red.