expect lots of chapter spam, i forgot to post all of these here whoopsie

~**~

His fingers brushed over the photo, for the millionth time of the day.

Who could blame him, really. After all, today was the anniversary. The anniversary of the day he wished had never come.

He wished he didn't have to go to school today, but he did. Curse Tuesdays. He tried to remain invisible, but it's a relatively small school, and everyone knew him, so there goes his plans of being sneaky. People singled him out, as usual, because whatever gods of luck out there decided that he didn't deserve their blessings. He managed to stutter out an excuse that he had to leave the conversation, and eventually Okami just let him leave school. He made a mental note to give her chocolate or something tomorrow.

Now he was walking, just walking around the town. He noticed a few landmarks placed on maps only mental, areas only someone who had attended Akademi in the past year or so would recognize as a place of huge importance or memory. That's where Grian and Pie got into a fight over Ellen, right? Here's Sookie, Soul, and Yuki's house, where Sam tried to poison the owl, only for Sookie, his crush, to get poisoned instead.... yikes.

He took out the photo, yes, again, and traced his finger on the pictures of these people he'll never see again, at least not in life, yes, again. He could never forget them, he never wanted to. He never would, not even in death, for in death your spirit pertains memory, does it not?

He wiped away the tears flowing stubbornly from his eyes, fogging up his glasses in a blatantly obvious display of his feelings.

Maybe when he died he'd finally see them again.

But he didn't want to die, not yet.

He saw the beauty in life, he did.

He was just going through a rough patch, that was all.

Everything was bound to get better.

Because that's what life was.

A series of ups and downs, a series where the downs seem to dominate, but if you just keep pushing through them, you'll live to see the next up.

That's what J told himself as he headed home, tears falling steadily, the photo of his parents gripped in his fingers, vowing to honor the people who tried to raise him before destiny decided their lives were not worthy of continuation.