Sadness

"R-Reira…?" Yuto, along with Yuri and Shun, stared at him in utter disbelief.

With his older brother dead beside him and the entire room stained in red…

How was he not dead?

"Kurosaki? What's going on?" Before Shun could even answer his question (one which even Shun couldn't really give a straight answer to other than that Reiji was dead) Reira's eyes widened as he noticed the blood covering the walls around him. He looked down at his stained blanket with alarm and threw it aside, starting to hyperventilate. As he fumbled to get off of the bed, he nearly slipped on something wet on the floor.

"Reira!" Shun lurched forward, catching Reira as the two tumbled to the floor.

"Oww…" Reira raised his head "Kurosaki—" the seven-year-old abruptly stopped mid-sentence.

"Reira, are you—?" Shun paused as well, not able to finish his sentence when he realised what Reira was looking at. Reiji's dead body was right next to them. Reira had slipped in his blood.

If Reira hadn't been hyperventilating before, he sure as hell was now.

"Reira!" Shun didn't know what to say to calm him down. He just continued to stare in horror at the body of his former boss in front of him.

Yuri finally spoke up, praying he wouldn't be sick when he opened his mouth. "We have to leave."

None of them moved.

"Come on! We can't stay here. He's dead. So what? Stop traumatising the kid and get him some hot chocolate or whatever" Yuri wasn't used to comforting someone, especially not small children.

Yuto cautiously tiptoed around the body, attempting to avoid the blood but there was just too much to miss it all. He crouched in between Shun and Reira and Reiji's body, and placed a hand on each of their shoulders. "Please. Let's go. I know it's hard, but…" he looked down, trying not to tear up. He hadn't known Reiji very well, but there was another person dead. It was all hard to take in. He couldn't stay in here with the body anymore, not to mention the horror it must be doing to Reira's young mind. He had to get himself and his remaining friends out of here. "C'mon…"

Shun glanced up at him. Yuto looked at him sympathetically, as his lower half was covered in Reiji's blood. First Ruri, now he had to suffer this.

"Okay…" Shun finally replied with a breath.

He gently picked Reira up and carried him out of the room, Yuto and Yuri following behind and closing the door.

As Yuto reached up with the edge of his sleeve to wipe the blood from Reira's face, he couldn't help but wonder: Reira was sleeping in the room while Reiji was being butchered. Reira was known for being a heavy sleeper, but even if he didn't wake up…

Why did the murderer decide to spare him?

A few moments later, Yuzu and Serena came sprinting down the hallway toward the group outside Reira's room.

"What's wrong?" Yuzu asked urgently "We heard noises. Wait, Yuto? What are you doing to him?" She had noticed Yuto before she spotted Reira and Shun were covered in blood. "What happened?!"

"Yuzu, Serena" The words died on Yuto's tongue as he tried to find a way to tell the girls what they had just found "That's not their blood. Reiji was…murdered."

As both Serena and Yuzu gasped in horror, Yuri briskly explained what happened after he chased after Shun to Reira's room, running into Yuto, what they discovered when they entered the room, and their surprise at the fact that Reira was spared.

"I can't believe that he was murdered…but not Reira" Serena muttered "I mean, I'm not saying that he should have died or anything, of course not, but it's just odd that the murderer…"

"Didn't kill me?" Reira finished her sentence, his voice low and quiet.

Everyone looked at each other, not sure what to say.

"Well no offence but you were the perfect target" Yuri finally spoke up "Or maybe it was a way to try to pin the crime on you. No one would suspect you of being capable of murdering people, but people would think it odd if you were left alive in a room with your brother dead next to you and be able to sleep through it all."

Reira lowed his gaze, no longer able to look at him. "I guess that's true…"

"Hey you scum, stop upsetting him!" Shun barked glaring at Yuri as he held Reira in his arms protectively "He's seven years old! There's no way he killed his own brother!"

"I'm being pragmatic" Yuri rolled his eyes, unbothered by all the hostility pointed towards him "You could sit here for hours and try to convince me that the kid didn't murder him, but he's still the most likely suspect."

"But that can't be right" Yuto shook his head "Reira can't be the murderer; he was in here the whole time when Ruri was murdered, asleep."

"RURI?!" Reira yelled out, eyes wide with shock, causing everyone to jump.

No one responded immediately.

"Yes" Shun finally responded, choking on his words. "Ruri is…dead."

Reira couldn't believe it. It was already bad enough that Nii-Sama had died, but now Ruri, too? Ruri was so nice. Reira had seen death far too many time in his short life, but Ruri was the most undeserving person to die he could think of, right next to Nii-Sama.

"What…is going on…?" He crawled out of Shun's arms, sat on the floor and hugged his knees. Shun sat on the floor next to him and awkwardly patted his shoulder. Serena backed up against the wall and slid down on the opposite side of Reira.

"I…I don't know, Reira" Serena slowly reached her arm around Reira's shoulders, letting him rest his head on her shoulder "I don't know…"

Everyone remained silent for a few moments, not too sure of what to say. A few tears were snaking down Reira's cheeks. He went to wipe them away with the sleeve of his hoodie, but forgot that Nii-Sama's blood was still on his face, red staining the blue fabric. He drew his eyes shut in frustration, having been reminded of when he saw Nii-Sama's bloody, lifeless body of the floor. He could have been killed just like him; he was right there! But for some reason he had been spared. Why? What was the point?

Yuri finally spoke through the silence. "I think we should all return to the main room. Yuya and big guy with the sash are still there, right? We all need to lock ourselves in our separate rooms until one of us can get hold of the police."

"Yeah."

Everyone nodded in agreement, which they very rarely did with Yuri. Shun had Reira take his hand as he moved him down the hallway into Shun's room. Reira needed a change of clothes; even though the blanket had prevented a lot of blood from splattering on his clothes, his trousers were soaked due to landing in Reiji's blood, just like Shun's were. Yuto took a breath and headed back into Reira's room to find some spare clothes for the small boy.

Whilst the other two dealt with Reira, Yuri, Yuzu, and Serena headed back down to the main room. Serena had been leading the group, and the two behind her were surprised when she suddenly stopped in front of them. Yuzu noticed Serena's drastic change in expression when her eyes widened and she threw her hands over her mouth.

"What's going on?" she pushed past Serena into the main room and let a scream tear from her throat at the horror in front of her.

Just minutes after having to hear about the discovery of the second body, the count now rose to three. Gongenzaka lay in the centre of the main room on his back in a pool of blood, three noticeable stab wounds in his chest. There appeared to have been a spot where someone had been kneeling in the pool, maybe trying to close Gongenzaka's wounds or perhaps moving in closer to cause more damage.

"N-NOBURU!" Yuzu screamed, everyone now in full view of the dead man. She attempted to run towards him, but Yuri grabbed her to stop her. She attempted to kick him off, but he forced her head to face him, and he just shook his head. Yuzu fell to her knees on the floor and just wept there, Serena kneeling down also and rubbing circles on her back in an attempt to stop herself from crying too.

"Hey" Yuri spoke up, glancing around the room with a confused look on his face "Aren't we missing someone?"

"Yuya!" Serena yelped, turning toward the couch where Yuya had been laying.

"Oi! YUYA!" Yuri cupped his hands and yelled "Get your stupid arse down here! People are dead!"

Even that didn't work. Everyone searched the room carefully for any trace of Yuya, but there was nothing to be found. Not even outside of the room. In this time, Reira, Shun and Yuto came into the room, Reira bursting into tears and hyperventilating, whilst Shun and Yuto turned rather green.

"Yuya's missing" Yuri kicked the ground "Are you sure he was in here when you guys left?"

"Yeah" Serena nodded, sitting down on the sofa next to Yuzu, who was crying even harder now "He was here along with Gongenzaka when we took off to find out what all the noise going on upstairs was about. He was still out of it, so Gongenzaka offered to question him a little more about what was wrong with him." She sighed "If only we insisted he came along."

"What was up with Yuya? Was he still sick from earlier?" Yuto asked.

"We weren't sure if he was sick or not, but he looked more spooked than anything. We asked him what was going on with him and the only things he said were that he couldn't say, 'I know', and 'I saw'" Serena explained.

"Saw?" Yuto tilted his head to the side "Saw what?"

"That was what we were trying to figure out" Yuri folded his arms over his chest "And now he's missing."

"You don't think that maybe…" Shun trailed off, leaning against the wall in his fresh clothes. He lowered his head, taking a quick glance at Gongenzaka's body before turning away.

"That Yuya could be the killer?" Yuri finished.

"No way!" Yuzu yelled.

"NO!" Reira half-screeched, tears running down his face "YUYA NII-SAMA WOULD NEVER DO THAT!"

"Let's not jump to conclusions" Serena put in before Reira really did try and commit a homicide "The murderer is acting pretty fishy. He spared Reira and now Yuya is missing. He could be using Yuya for something."

"Yuya did seem genuinely…fearful of something" Yuzu commented, swallowing tears. "I've never seen him like that before."

"I just can't think that the murderer could be any of our friends…" Serena swallowed "I mean, why would anybody do this? Ruri and Reiji and now Gongenzaka. It just doesn't make sense."

"Well, it's the only thing we have to go on" Yuri spoke up "That means that no matter if we lock ourselves in our rooms, the person we sleep next-door to could be the killer."

Everyone gasped at the thought of that.

"It's not safe anywhere…" Serena began to tear up. "What are we supposed to do?"

"Well, there's no splitting up at this point" Yuto told the group "We should all stick together."

"Do you think Sawatari's gotten a hold of the police yet?" Yuzu questioned.

"That loudmouth would've told us all if he had" Yuri pointed out.

"Why don't a few of us go out to the police station ourselves?" Serena asked.

"You seemed to forget about the little problem know as: the blizzard" Shun jabbed and thumb in the direction of the white-outted window.

"He's right" Yuto sadly agreed "This is terrible."

"How many of us are there?" Yuzu asked "Is there anyone we can eliminate as not being the murderer?"

"Well" Yuto paused to think "There are seventeen of us total. Three of us – Ruri, Reiji and Gongenzaka - are dead, so now we're down to fourteen."

"That doesn't narrow it down much…" Shun frowned.

"I might be able to narrow it down more" Yuto hastily added "But it's difficult. Since any one of our friends could be the murderer, no one can really be relied on for alibis. Especially for Ruri's murder."

"Well, can't we assume that if we were together between Reiji's murder and Gongenzaka's murder," Serena said, 'we' meaning Yuzu and herself "And that Reira and Yuto were with Yuri and Kurosaki before the two of us left Gongenzaka and Yuya alive in the main room, that none of us could have been responsible for any of the murders?"

"True" Yuto nodded "But there's also another problem."

"What is it?" Yuzu asked.

"The possibility that there's more than one murderer."

The room was deathly silent. More than one murderer? That couldn't be…

"That means that any of us could be…" Yuzu trailed off, glancing around the room sceptically at everyone.

Reira began backing away from Shun slowly. Anyone could be an enemy.

"Reira?" Shun stared at him in shock.

"Anyone…" Reira held his clenched fists up toward his chest in a defensive position. Even Kurosaki could be the murderer. He couldn't take any chances getting too close to anyone. Especially not considering that he was this close to being murdered himself.

Shun's face tightened, his fists clenching and then unclenching. He had already lost Ruri, and now Reira potentially suspected him of being the murderer. He couldn't take it anymore.

"Yuto!" He suddenly rushed up and grabbed the boy's collar, pulling him close. Shun glared at his childhood friend through gritted teeth. "One, two, five murderers, I don't care how many! They murdered my family, and now I'm possibly being suspected! We need to find out who they are immediately and take them down!"

"Shun, please, calm down!" Serena stood up and tried to separate him from Yuto, but Shun swatted her away.

"Don't tell me to calm down!" he shouted.

"Shun, stop!" Yuzu grabbed Shun's other arm "Maybe this is what the murderer wants! He's just playing with our minds! We need to get a grip and focus!"

Shun stared hard into Yuzu's smokey-blue eyes that reminded him so much of Ruri's. She looked like she was about to cry.

"Please…" she pleaded "Stop…"

Shun obliged and let go of Yuto's collar. "Fine. But I suggest we do something about this quick."

"Shun's right" Serena agreed "We can't afford to let anyone else die."

Her gaze flitted over to Gongenzaka's body, before quickly squeezing her eyes shut and turning her head away.

"Do you think that maybe it would be a better plan to just have everyone gather in here?" Yuri suggested, sounding almost bored "That way, we'll all be in here and no one else should be murdered because we'll all be in the same room."

"Yeah, that's a good idea" Yuto nodded, a little shaken up from Shun's sudden outburst "If we can't get hold of the police tonight, we'll just have to wait until morning."

"What a rubbish way to spend the morning of Sawatari's birthday" Serena muttered.

"Let's call everyone into the living room instead" Yuzu suggested "Obviously because…"

She glanced over at Gongenzaka's body.

"Of course" Yuto nodded, accepting the role of being in charge of this small group of people.

Before they left for the living room, Yuzu pulled out a bed sheet from the hallway cupboard to place over Gongenzaka. Until the police could get here, they would just have to leave him there.

Serena sent a mass text passed on by Dennis, directing everyone to report to the living room. She hoped no one would question the change in rooms so that they wouldn't venture off to the main room themselves. Fortunately, no one did. Though everyone seemed confused as to why they were there.

Once Shun was sure that enough time had gone by, he and Sawatari began doing a head count.

"…Eleven, twelve." Sawatari stopped, then counted again. Twelve people were in the room, counting himself. That wasn't right. "Fourteen, right? Who's missing?"

"Yuya" Shun answered "Yuya's still missing."

"Oh!" they heard Yuto gasp "Yugo was supposed to walk with me to Reira's room, but he told me to go on ahead because he had to use the bathroom! He never showed up!"

Shun and Sawatari glanced at one another. If this meant what they thought it did…

There could be another dead body in the mansion somewhere.