Just a reminder that the final deadline for this is the 28th of July (this Sunday!). I'm not being picky about timezones/times, so as long as it's still the 28th somewhere, you have that time. I will make some cast selections on that day itself, and the rest over the course of a few days after that. But anyway, enjoy this chapter!

Kenichi

The short-term rental apartment that Tetsuji Kamiya was staying in was part of a new building. I certainly hadn't seen it before, but then again I hadn't been in this part of Towa for a little while now. I knew the city well-being part of its police force kind of made that necessary, but it had never been mine, really. I (and, for a happy while a long time ago, Kimiko) had lived in the next town over. It'd been Tetsuji's though, even if it was a long time ago, which was no doubt the explanation for how he'd managed to find this place. Certainly, one of the many hotels Towa had on offer wouldn't cut it.

Instead of pressing the doorbell for the relevant apartment number-7-I took out my mobile and selected Tetsuji's number to call before holding it up to my ear.

"I'm standing outside the place you're staying at."

"I told you, you didn't need to come." His raspy voice retorted.

And I told you there'd be no point in coming. I decided not to say that, mostly because it would have had about as much effect as it had when I'd actually told him. That, and honestly? When it came down to it, I was more on his side than the investigation. Sure, if it yielded the truth, that would be great, but I didn't believe it would. If even the best efforts had revealed nothing, then what would happen now? It was just grandstanding. I didn't understand how a school that had been shut down in disgrace twenty years ago still had so much power.

But still…. There was Kimiko to think about. She may have been dead, but she was still my daughter.

"Well, I'm here."

"Come on up then."

I hung up, and headed up the stairs to Apartment 7. Tetsuji was sitting on the front step, smoking a cigarette, frowning. The frown was more a grim one, rather than blazing with anger, like I had expected. Even though I'd spoken to him on the phone sporadically over the last 20 years, we had never actually interacted in person until now, and I was shocked-though not necessarily surprised-to notice that his hair had gained a lot more white in it, though there were still some traces of the youthful black. And where he had been clean-shaven before, he now sported a beard and moustache. He looked up as my shadow fell across him, and narrowed his eyes before he took the cigarette from his mouth, put it out on the doorstep and stood up. With only a nod to acknowledge me, he opened the door and ushered me in.

"Nice to see you too." I muttered as I took my shoes off.

Tetsuji simply grunted, and once he locked the door, he led me to the living room. He sat himself down on the one sofa-a generically coloured, sad looking thing-and I sat down on what appeared to be a dining room chair. He dropped the cigarette he'd put out into an ash tray already on the small coffee table.

"Did you see the press conference?" he asked.

"No, I was doing things for other cases." I said. "Did you watch it?"

I looked over at the small television, and presumed he had. Sure enough, he nodded.

"It's really real then, isn't it?"

"Would you have come here if there was a hint it wasn't?"

"You take what you get." Tetsuji scoffed. "Anything, You should know that."

I shrugged, and there was a silence for a while. Despite all we had in common, and all that we'd once had, in truth there was more these days that we didn't have in common. I still worked in Forensics, he no longer did. I hadn't wanted this, he had. He had spiralled, I had not. Though, that isn't saying much, is it? Apart from my job, Kimiko had been my driving force, and so for twenty years my life had been half-empty. I'd always hated the whole glass-half-full/glass-half-empty analogy, but I'd grown to hate it even more.

"Are you going to see your ex?" I asked.

"Why would I do that?" Tetsuji asked, apparently baffled.

"She was Moeka-chan's mother, after all. And you were married."

If I'd known where Kimiko's mother was, I'd have called her myself. Then again, she could have done the same with me. But she hadn't been around for Kimiko's whole life, and that hadn't changed when she'd gone missing, hadn't changed when she was found dead. Yet, Tetsuji and Hanami had had each other, at the very least, and look how things had ended up. I couldn't help but feel a little resentful of that.

We stared at each other. A different emotion flickered on Tetsuji's face, but it quickly disappeared, replaced by the scowl that I was starting to realise was his default expression these days. Not that I could judge.

"Yes, well." Tetsuji cleared his throat. "That was a long time ago. She's moving on."

And, you're not. Then again, neither was I.

"You should probably still…do something." I pressed.

"That's not what I'm here for." Tetsuji said, glowering at me.

I sighed, knowing there was no point in pressing it. I supposed Hanami would be aware of the investigation reopening now, if she hadn't been before. And sooner or later, Tetsuji's presence would be made known. Which was why I was here, visiting even though he'd said not to. Perhaps I was hoping that me being in contact, giving him information, would limit his impulse to interfere directly.

But, looking around me at the boxes I had paid little attention to before, when I'd first walked in, I realised that was wishful thinking.

"There hasn't been much," I said with a sigh. "You can imagine how it was, all about Hope's Peak, just establishing the hierarchy, all that whatever. Though, the tech department are getting to work on those tablet things-they're thinking that now they might be able to crack them."

"You're talking about the so-called 'Electro ID' things." He said, nodding.

"Those are the ones."

"Has anything else of note been done?"

"Mostly just dragging everything back up from the archive and getting people on it. I've been running tests on some of the clothing, for example. The main investigative team has been established too. Oh, and they've had people out informing the survivors, and the other victims' families."

"So, basically, nothing."

I said nothing to this. On the one hand, it was the first day. On the other hand, I agreed.

"Well, I won't be letting anything on my end slide. If there's even the tiniest little speck of dirt that could give us an answer now, I or one of my team will find it. "

Tetsuji nodded at that. He clasped his hands together briefly, then unclasped them and looked back at me.

"Who are the detectives on the case? Are they trustworthy?"

"Well….." I considered. "At the meeting, Detective Arisato was the only one with a smidgen of fucking compassion. He's generally a good detective, and he's had good results, but he's not the lead."

"Whyever not?"

"Because he's married to one of the survivors."

"Yes, that'd do it. " Tetsuji said after a moment. "So, who is?"

"Couldn't you tell from the press conference?" I snarked.

"…"

I sighed and rubbed my face tiredly before I answered.

"Well…there isn't one person who is the lead-"

I was just about to launch into the rather complicated back and forth that had surrounded who would be the lead when suddenly, my stomach rumbled. I raised an eyebrow at Tetsuji, who grumbled slightly before getting up with little more than a brusque 'wait' by way of explanation and leaving the room. Once again, I looked around me, at all the boxes. I resisted the urge to go through, wondering what it was Tetsuji had found, what conclusions he had drawn.

"Oh, hey, Kamiya-san, what's up?"

I put down the sample that I had been testing and bounded over to Tetsuji, who shifted uncomfortably.

"Have you heard from Kimiko?"

"I-" my cheer faltered as I thought of my daughter. "I think….she did send a text…."

I pulled my mobile phone out from my labcoat pocket-strictly speaking, I wasn't meant to have it with me, but as long as we weren't doing dangerous procedures, and we weren't distracted, the higher-ups turned a blind eye. Which was pretty useful now, as I tapped onto my messages, and looked for the thread from Kimiko.

"'Hi Dad, we're in Fukuchiyama right now, Moeka-chan found an oni museum and we're going to have a look around there-we're not staying the night here though" I read.

Since there were also a couple of pictures, I showed Tetsuji these briefly, and then turned the phone screen back to me, chuckling slightly over the pictures, before remembering the situation.

"That was….oh. Fuck. They sent that on the 8th. And they were meant to be back two days ago, right?"

"Yeah, 13th or 14th in case of traffic or something, Moeka told me," Tetsuji said. "Are you sure you haven't got anything from after the 8th?"

"I thought I had…."

Desperately, I tapped Kimiko's name, then selected the function to make a call. I held the phone to my ear, listened desperately, waiting for her to pick up. Instead, it went straight to voicemail.

"Kimiko, it's Dad. Um, you haven't sent me anything in a while, so I just wanted to make sure you were alright. Call or message me as soon as you get this, okay? Oh, and ask Moeka-chan to do the same with her dad too, alright? Oh, and Jim-Bob says hi."

Tetsuji had raised an eyebrow at my reference to the plastic life-sized skeleton model-Kimiko had named it when she was a little girl-but beyond that, he was as restless as before. Anxiety clouded his face, mirroring my own state. How had I failed to notice that Kimiko hadn't contacted me for so long? I hung up, then slipped my phone back into my pocket, and looked at Tetsuji.

"I…I think we're going to have to report them missing, don't you?"

"Yeah…."

I was abruptly startled by Tetsuji returning. He had two cans of beer in one hand, and a bowl of what looked like mixed nuts in another. He set them down, and sat down heavily. I grabbed some nuts at random, shoved them into my mouth, then cracked open a can of beer and washed them down. Tetsuji, to his credit, waited before peppering me with more questions. But eventually, there seemed to be no more to say, at least for today.

"Well, suppose I'd better be going." I said.

Tetsuji simply nodded. I didn't expect him to come to let me out, but he did.

"I've been waiting for this for twenty years."

Startled at the whispered words, one foot out of the door and one still in, I turned and regarded him. I wasn't sure we'd ever been friends, as such. But still…we'd been united, sparking the first concerns for our children and their friends, sharing in the worry and fear, and then the pain when they weren't one of the seven. And even as he'd spiralled, he'd still had the presence of mind to attend Kimiko's funeral, as I had done for Moeka's. I couldn't understand the way he had gone, but surely, in all the ways that mattered, he was still a mirror to me?

"I know." I said, simply.

There was little else to say. Tetsuji nodded, expression closing off once more. I stepped out properly, and he closed the door behind me. With a sigh, I looked up at the sky. It was completely dark now, but there was a vague suggestion of rain in the shape of the clouds. Not wholly unexpected, since it was the tail end of the rainy season. But, despite my lack of superstition, I could not help but wonder if this was a sign of things to come.

"Well, rain or shine, things are going to happen anyway, aren't they?" I muttered to myself.

I shook the silliness from my mind firmly, reminded myself that this all would at least get some semblance of justice for Kimiko if I was lucky, and then I went on my way.

…

Azami

Steam, rising. Soft voice murmuring 'here', hands curving mine around a cup, pushing it upwards. Warmth blooming across my face, warm spicy tastes on my tongue. Lift cup, sip, gulp, swallow,my hands remember the motion, and the other hands move away from mine. Murmuring, around me.

The murmuring gets louder. My hands shake. Lift cup, sip, gulp, swallow. Lift cup, sip, gulp, swallow. Shouting-"come on!" "quickly!". The cup is gone, I am pulled to my feet. Running, running. So much noise. Words, but I don't know what they are. Running, running, hand clamped around my wrist. It hurts, but I can't get the words out. Shoes, clattering against the flooring and then…light? Why is it so bright? Try to stop, keep getting pulled and then….

The hand leaves my wrist, and everything is wet. Water, dropping all over me. Turn my head up…up to the sky? The sky.

"It's..raining?"

"Yes, Azami-chan, it is raining."

"Azami?"

I look around. Eizo-chi, Sadie-chan, Aozaki-kun…..Eizo-chi, Sadie-chan, Aozaki-kun…I keep repeating this, looking, looking, looking.

But I can't see her.

A lot of my memories were not even memories, not in the strictest sent, but they'd been bouncing around my head all day. I was never one for sticking around after work to socialise-no matter how much my perky younger colleague Nagisa asked-but today, more than ever, I had to get out of there. I think David noticed, from the look I noticed him give as we passed each other in the doorway to our floor, but that, of course, was neither here nor there. I'd never told him about anything to do with back then, and of course these days there was even less reason to do so.

But…Hope's Peak was reopening. And more than that, the investigation they had into what happened to me and to Akari and to everyone else, that was reopening too. Which meant that they'd be wanting to talk to me. Wanting to go back over it. My not-quite-memory-memories had made it hard enough to get through the day-how would I manage to talk about them?

I gathered up the white shirt and black skirt I'd worn to work, and left the bedroom to put them in the wash. Kneeling down by the washing machine, I stared into it for a long, long moment. What do I do? What do I do? My mind kept pulling me back to that moment-that momentary re-recognition of my friend's faces, how I looked and looked for Akari's but couldn't find it. I think, after that, my blind completely blanked. I remembered the word promise, and once again the motion of someone pulling my hand somewhere, and I was sure I remembered the relief in my parents voices. But that was it, until one day I resurfaced and I was alone, surrounded by photographs and the sinking feeling that it should have been me who'd died.

"Meeeeeee."

"Oh, Jiji." I blinked, startled, as my cat came over and nuzzled me. "Feel free to sit on my skirt now. I'm not putting the machine on now."

Of course, Jiji did not. Instead, as I forced myself up and went to my small living room, he followed. And when I curled up on the sofa, he clambered onto my lap, presumably detecting that I wasn't feeling great. Or it could've just been he wanted attention, which was also possible. Either way, I was happy to absently stroke him while I tried and failed to watch something vaguely feel-good on Netflix, until my phone went off to remind me to eat dinner.

Jiji mewled in protest when I turfed him off my lap, but I ignored it as I went to the kitchen, and looked for something to eat. I eventually found a sad-looking ready meal, and as it heated up, I poured out some food for Jiji (which soon stopped his cat-style-moping). Then, once it was ready, I sat at the table, and picked at it while my mind continued to whir.

All of these years, they'd been such a battle. Slowly, slowly inching myself towards something that looked like a life. Gradually managing to make myself believe that it was still worth something, to live without Akari. Painfully approaching the minimum requirements of functional. I was still really only half a person, and I'd needed so much help to get here, but get here I had.

And now, it was coming undone.

The past was coming back to haunt me.

I forced myself to take a spoonful of my food. It tasted like nothing. It would have been less bother to not eat, but I knew I couldn't go down that route. So I took another mouthful, and then another. Waking up, turning over and murmuring Akari's name, no response. Another mouthful, and another. Sleepiness abruptly gone, sitting up to see the other side of my bed is empty. Another mouthful, and another, motions my hands and mouth remembered. Careening down the corridor, to where the voices of everyone else are. Again, another mouthful, and another. Their faces, turned to me, a mixture of sorrow and other things. I push past, needing to know….and then….

"Akari…"

Red, so much red. How can it be?

With a cry, I pushed away the ready meal, pushed the chair away from the table. Breathe, I tried to remind myself, breathe. Shaking, I got up, and stumbled to the living room to get my phone off the coffee table. My instinctive thought was to call Dr Sugita, but then, for whatever reason, my memories took me somewhere else.

"So, um…yeah."

He finished off the scribble with a flourish, and tucked the pen behind his ear before handing me the business card. I took it, cautiously. I got the sense that I should say something, but before I could think of what that something should be, he'd already gone.

"Ooooh, what was that about?" Nagisa asked. "Think he's got a thing for you?"

"I have no idea." I said, tucking the card into my blouse pocket.

But deep down, I thought only one thing: Eizo-chi?

I honestly hadn't expected that I would see any of them again. In the first place, for the first few years after we were all free, I was in no fit state to keep in touch with anyone. Then, there was what I thought I remembered. To never see each other…Besides, none of them had indeed tried to keep in touch with me, so I figured that was that. It certainly made my approach of trying to forget just that bit easier. But then, a couple of years ago, my offices had redone their security, and just for a moment, Eizo had reappeared in my life.

"Oh my gosh, no way! No frigging way!"

The boy grinned ear-to-ear, blue eyes sparkling before he turned and took a few steps over to grab the attention of a skinny blond boy nearby, who was talking to a surly, purple-haired, bespectacled boy with glasses. Akari and I exchanged glances before they came back, and then once they did, we exchanged another glance. Though the first boy's hair was dyed and a little longer, though his ears were pierced and he seemed brighter, he was virtually identical to the blond boy.

"Fumi, this is Akari Kishinami, and that's Azami Kishinami," he proclaimed, correctly identifying which one was which without seeming to need to think about it. "Azami and Akari, I'm Eizo Amai, and this is Fumiaki….my twin!"

"Oh, another pair of twins?" Fumiaki nodded, apparently not as mind-blown as his brother. "It's nice to meet you both."

"The same with you." Akari replied.

"Yeah, this is pretty cool!" I added.

"I know, right?" Eizo grinned even more. "It's basically like double the double trouble!"

I stared at my phone for a long moment. Eizo's laughter at his revelation echoed in my mind, merging into another memory of Eizo teasing me because I'd mixed up my directions, thinking that we were closer to Kyoto than to Yonago, where Yodoe was. Yodoe, where Ochiai-kun was from…that day had been fun too…I dimly recalled a tangle of little kids following some of us around there-had Eizo been one of them? Had I been one of them? The pain had made it all hazy.

Then, I was up like a shot, scrambling, looking through all my drawers, driven by a compulsion I did not think I fully understood. I rushed from place to place to place, until finally, I found it deep in my bedside drawer. Clutching it tightly for a moment, I remained kneeling there, trying to gather back my breath. Then, slowly, I made my way back to the living room, and picked up my phone.

Am I really going to do this? Am I really? It doesn't make sense to do this.

"But," I whispered to myself. "Nothing does."

So hesitantly, one digit at a time, fingers trembling, I punched in the number Eizo had scribbled on that card.

…

Eizo

I was finishing up making the alterations to my diary when my mobile started to clatter around in my desk drawer, the melancholy tune of 'Is There Still Anything Love Can Do?' piping out of the gaps telling me it was my personal mobile, rather than the work one. Scrambling, I tapped a key to save my changes, then unlocked my drawer, fished out my phone, locked the drawer again, and then answered.

"Hello?"

There was a silence for a moment. Then, a hesitant breath, slightly shaky at the edges. I gripped my phone tighter as I waited, and then:

"Eizo…-chi?"

The voice was that of a woman-soft, slightly flat, slightly dissatisfied. It could have been anyone-certainly, I hadn't recognised the glimpse of the number before I'd put the phone to my ear. But the use of my first name, plus that hesitant honorific that nobody had used for me in years made me take a breath of my own. I'd been waiting for this call for two years, ever since I'd scrawled my personal number onto a business card and pressed it into her hands before scrambling away. I'd been hoping for it, despite everything.

"Azami?" I asked, somehow not daring to hope. "Is that you?"

"Yes."

"Oh, Azami. It's…it's been a while, huh?"

Smooth, Eizo, real smooth, I berated myself. We'd been classmates and friends, we'd experienced the same hell together-with more common points there than either of us should ever had suffered, and yet all I could say was that it'd been a while? There was no sense in asking how it had come to this, because I knew it full well. But I had never wanted it, even though everyone else had gone along with it. I'd taken a risk, reaching out to Azami after I'd spotted her at the office whose security services I'd come to upgrade that time. But, after two years, it'd worked.

"It has." Azami said, simply.

Another moment of silence. I wondered what it was Azami was thinking, or if she'd wondered what I was thinking. We had dated, back then, for a little while. Not seriously-quite literally, we'd just gone on dates to ice-cream places, amusement parks, karaoke places, sometimes even the park where Azami could happily lose herself in taking photographs of the snow making the grass glitter, or sunlight through maple leaves. All those carefree teenage date locations. I'd tried to harangue Fumiaki into dating Akari, and Azami had done the same with Akari, because of course it'd be hilarious for a pair of twins to double-date a pair of twins, but nothing had come of it. It hadn't really mattered though, either way. It was just fun, something that we were meant to look back on fondly.

But these days, with something I called hindsight but knew deep down was just nostalgia, I found myself thinking that it could have been more serious. With time and age, perhaps we might have developed proper feelings, entered a serious relationship with each other, got married, had a couple of adorable kids who'd be absolute scamps running circles around us. All those ordinary things. If things had been different, this phone conversation might have been just to remind me to get some vegetables on the way home.

But none of that happened. Instead, I lost Fumiaki, and she lost Akari, and now we were here.

"Are…are you alright? Did you hear?"

"They called my parents first. Because they weren't sure…you know." Azami hesitated.

"Mhm," I said, feeling a wave of guilt.

I decided not to mention that I'd known about Hope's Peak for a while. I decided that could wait until we were all back together again.

"What's going to happen now?" Azami asked.

"Well…they'll need to talk to us, but Ayuna, she's been trying to track everyone down so that we can all meet up."

"Okay, first, who's Ayuna?" Azami asked, a note of surprise in her voice.

I wondered how she couldn't know. Then again, Azami had never been into horror, and I didn't think she'd have started now. That, and I'd also been back in touch with Ayuna again so now it was just general knowledge to me.

"Aozaki, we would've addressed her back then. Osamu Aozaki. But now she's Ayuna."

"Oh. Transitioned?"

"Yeah, a little while ago now."

"Oh."

There was a pause. I imagined the Azami that I had briefly seen (hair no longer dyed and shorter to boot, eyes no longer bright) frowning as she adjusted to this information.

"Okay, but it is actually getting ridiculous!" Akari said, shaking her head in exasperation and looking over at Azami.

"Yup." Azami said as she munched at her sandwich role. "I mean, you'd think it'd be obvious by now."

"Maan, I know how you feel, right, Fumi?" I grinned, looking over at him.

"Eizo, nobody could ever mix us two up." Fumiaki sighed patiently.

When I just gaped at him, he sighed and pointed to his hair, blond and short. The same colour that mine naturally was.

"Oh yeah, of course! Duh!"

I looked over at Azami, with her black hair in something that was halfway between a bun and a ponytail, and at Akari, whose hair was in a more neat, perky ponytail. It was a minimal difference though. Though I'd worn my hair a little longer before I'd gotten into dyeing it, and that had fended off most mix-ups, I knew that as little kids, me and Fumiaki'd been indistinguishable from appearance alone.

"Hair dye!" I proclaimed. "That's your answer! One of you should turn your hair a different colour, then you won't get mixed up!"

Akari looked at Azami, and Azami looked at Akari, and then they turned back to us.

"We'll both dye our hair," Akari declared.

"In different colours." Azami continued.

And then they laughed, and I couldn't help but grin too, because people laughing was one of the best things in the world.

I shook my head at the memory. Who would have imagined that over a year later, the things that happened would have happened? I certainly had not.

A knock on the door startled me, so I quickly told Azami to hold on, and called out for the person to come in. My assistant opened the door and stepped into the room.

"Amai-san, are you going home?"

"Yes, yes, I'm just sorting out the diary and taking this call. You can lock everywhere else up, I'll lock up front when I leave."

"Alright then, goodnight."

My assistant left, and I quickly returned the phone to my ear, hoping that Azami had not just disappeared.

"So,um, what was the second thing?"

"What about the promise?"

Oh, thank goodness.

"Oh. You….uh, you knew?"

It was both a relief and a devastation, to know that she knew, but I couldn't rightly say why, either way. This damned promise.

"Well now," Azami let out a small sound that might have been a laugh. "I'm not so sure I knew. But I picked up some things, and that combined with the fact I have never seen any of you, ever, after then….I guess I assumed. "

"I, well….I mean, I didn't want it to be like that, you know? After all, we managed to get through things together, right?" I blurted out before I could think about it closely.

"Did we?"

Oh, Azami. Azami, I'm sorry. We were both twins, after all, and yet I couldn't help you. I thought back again, to us, in the minivan, laughing at something I'd found on my phone. To the dates, and everything else.

"Eizo?"

No use of the old honorific this time, but still, my heart, it hurt and yet somehow it felt good. I'd lost so much, not least because of this separation. I was glad that at least that aspect of things would soon be over.

"Yes?"

"I'm scared."

"I know. I am, too."

"Is it really okay? To break the promise?"

"As far as I was concerned it was a loada BS in the first place, but yeah. This'd force us all together anyway. And like I said, I think we'd be better able to face it if we were together."

"I…I suppose…."

"I could come to you first?" I said, suddenly. "Then I could take you to Ayuna, and then we could meet everyone else? Like I said, Ayuna is trying to organise it all."

"I…." Azami hesitated.

"I'd like to see you again. Twin to twin."

"I…." Azami's voice hitched, and there was a long pause before she continued. "I'd like that too."

"Alright," I seized on this, as quickly as possible. "Give me your address, and I can be with you tomorrow morning?"

"Tomorrow morning? Are you sure?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm literally rejigging my schedule for meeting you all anyway." I answered breezily.

"Oh."

The silence this time went on for so long I started to worry that Azami had hung up without me noticing, but then finally, she spoke.

"Okay."

…

I had driven my father over to clean up the family grave recently, so the bunch of bright flowers that had been left there were still going strong, waving happily in a breeze I could barely fill. Even so, as I bent down to see Fumiaki's name, I poured a little water from my bottle into the holder. Hopefully I'd be back soon-but I knew that a neighbour would be more than happy to drive him over while I was gone anyway, if he needed it.

"Hey there, twin. " I said. Guess what's happening?

I had no idea if Fumiaki was looking down on me-on us- in some other form or not, but I couldn't imagine what he'd think of all this. In the first few years after we'd been rescued and I was out in the world again on my own, I'd powered through things by asking myself what Fumiaki would've done, until I'd learnt how to be myself without him to lean on. But somehow, now, I wanted to know what he would think of all this, and how he would have reacted.

We were all silent-even the girls' sobs had been muted-as we waited. At the front, with Sen'ya sitting next to me furiously shredding his paper napkin, I could see Fumiaki swallow as he sized up the situation, trying to work out what do to. To solve this. But even I could have told him that there wasn't a solution here: we were royally screwed.

But Fumiaki came to this realisation soon enough, because finally, his shoulders sagged underneath that nice dark green jacket that he'd bought at the last place we'd stopped. Slowly, stiffly, he climbed back into the driver's seat.

I gasped, and looked over at Sen'ya, hoping for some reassuring look or something. But Sen'ya's dark blue eyes, behind his glasses, were totally fixated on the napkin-shred-mountain forming on his lap. If he had any more arguments to give, they were gone now. Man, we could really do with that acid tongue of yours right now, I thought but didn't say. Come to think of it, we could have done with a good joke. But I couldn't think of one of those, either. So I turned back to where Fumiaki was carefully buckling himself back in. From the other noises, everyone else was also putting their seatbelts back on. I did mine, and nudged Sen'ya to do the same.

Fumiaki's hands settled on the steering wheel, and once again I could see him swallow. Then, unexpectedly, recklessly, he looked over his shoulder, and his eyes locked with mine.

"It'll be alright." He said, simply.

Then, he looked straight ahead, and his foot pressed the accelerator.

I shook my head against the memory, forced myself to think of something else, something happier. And eventually, my mind found a rainy afternoon from the year before. For whatever reason, there was nothing to do (Weekend? Free period? End of the school day? That detail, I didn't remember), and we'd all been bored. So somehow me and some others-Ayuna, Katsuya, Rin-had taken it into our heads to be like little kids again, jumping in the puddles and running around in the rain. I think you're all bonkers, but there's wellies and stuff in the store-cupboard by the music room, Sen'ya had said, and though Fumiaki had expressed similar sentiments, he'd helped us gather everyone around in their raincoats, out into the rain. And sure enough, soon almost all of us were splashing around and playing in the rain. Sadie did an impromptu dance routine in the rain using her umbrella, and got Moeka and Akari into it too, and Azami, when she wasn't splashing around with the rest of us, took photographs of different things as they looked in this weather. And at some point, she took a photograph of all of us, laughing under the downpour.

It was raining back then too, wasn't it? The day we were freed? I sighed. I was sure somewhere, in amongst the mementos I'd packed in my luggage, that photograph was there. Hopefully, when we did all meet up, it'd remind the others that our bond had not been all about what had happened back there. We'd had something good, and maybe we could find our way back to it.

"What do you think, Fumi?" I asked.

The breeze simply blew, a little softer this time. I sighed, and then got up, brushing down my trousers. And even though the sun was shining brightly, I kept that memory of the rain firmly in my head as I walked away.

Characters introduced:

Survivors

Azami Kishinami, former SHSL Nature Photographer (created by: chiaki ebooks)

Eizo Amai, former SHSL Comedian (created by: Ziggymia123)

Investigators

Tetsuji Kamiya, Forensic Pathologist (created by: Treeja)

Victims

Sen'ya Ochiai, former SHSL Yodoe Umbrella Maker (my OC)

Akari Kishinami, former SHSL Wedding Photographer (created by: chiaki ebooks)

Fumiaki Amai, former SHSL Agent (created by Ziggymia123)