- volume 8, chapter 41 -

"Eh?" Kurosaki mumbled, nearly tripping over a body sprawled outside Takaomi's door. "Is this what was making all the noise?" Hesitating, she poked the body and nudged it over with her toe to find a drunk man smiling up at her. "Eep!" she yelped, jumping back and staring at it in slight horror. "U-um, are you a friend of Takaomi's, by chance?"

He smiled, sake in one hand, before suddenly scowling. "Takaomi that asshole!"

"Yeah...he knows Takaomi," Kurosaki muttered out of the side of her mouth before looking back toward the body. "So...um...what are you doing?"

"I missed the last bus home, and I don't know where to stay for tonight, so I figured I'd make Takaomi take me in since THIS IS ALL HIS FAULT ANYWAY!" the man yelled, causing Kurosaki it jump back once again.

"W-well, Takaomi isn't here right now-"

"THEN WHERE AM I GOING TO STAY?!"

Kurosaki sighed, her eyes narrowing. "Fine, fine. You can stay at my place, but ONLY until Takaomi gets back, okay?"

"Fine," the man agreed, glaring back at her.

"BE GRATEFUL, IDIOT!" Kurosaki yelled before dragging the drunkard inside. Once within the boundaries of her apartment, the door shut behind them, she turned to him. "What's your name, by the way?"

"I'm Kakimoto," he drawled in a pining way.

"How do you know Takaomi?" Kurosaki asked, tilting her head slightly. "Are you a teacher, too?"

Kakimoto laughed. "Me? A teacher? No...but I can't imagine Takaomi as a teacher, either!" He guffawed to his own amusement. "Do all the students hate him?" he asked eagerly, and Kurosaki hesitated slightly, eyeing Kakimoto suspiciously.

"Well...no, I wouldn't say that..." she replied, and Kakimoto scowled.

"Why not?!"

"I don't know! They just don't, okay?!" she yelled back, sighing and biting her mouth angrily as she sat down. "I know he doesn't seem like he should be a teacher, but..."

"But what?!"

"But he's not so bad," she finished defensively, crossing her arms.

Kakimoto growled. "It's not fair! That damn Takaomi..." He frowned at Kurosaki. "And you! Why are you defending him! Don't you hate him as much as I do?!"

"Well, I can't really deny that..." Kurosaki muttered, "but ...well...Takaomi tries really hard for the students," she said, thinking back to exam week.

"WHY DO YOU KEEP DEFENDING HIM?" Kakimoto yelled, standing up, clearly drunk past his limits.

"Hey," Kurosaki said, slightly nervous. "Just calm down..." It was only now that she realized that she was alone in her apartment with a grown man. What do I do?! I can't just knock him out, can I? And what if he's one of Takaomi's delinquent friends?! What if he's super strong?! I know...I just have to get to the door...then I can get out, and I'll be perfectly safe. For now...I should...what should I do? Oh, yeah...I should call someone...Cell phone, cell phone...

She fumbled with her pocket until she flipped her phone out, but then it dropped on the ground. She dove for it as Kakimoto began lurching toward her. Panicked, she began hitting buttons as fast as her fingers would go.
Suddenly, the phone was ringing, and she put it to her ear.

"Kurosaki?" came the voice on the other end.

"Hayasaka! It's Kurosaki Mafuyu!"

"Kurosaki, I know who it is," Hayasaka muttered. "I don't need both of your names..."

"MAFUYU?!" Kakimoto bellowed. "TAKAOMI'S PRECIOUS MAFUYU?" he yelled, remembering Takaomi in his youth, who was often accompanied by a small girl by the name of Mafuyu.

"Kurosaki? What's happening? Is someone else there?" Hayasaka said, his voice urgent, and Kurosaki's hand trembled.

"Hayasaka, come he-" Kurosaki cut herself off. If I drag Hayasaka into this, he'll probably get hurt! He's not strong enough in a fight! And it's my fault that he got hurt before...No! I can't involve him in this! "It's nothing, Hayasaka. Sorry to bother you! See you tomorrow! Bye!"

"Kuro-?"

Kurosaki hung up and quickly dodged a hit from Kakimoto, who had quickly gone from an emotional drunk to an angry drunk as he swept the phone out of her hands, throwing it against the wall, where it shattered.

Kurosaki stared for a second in fear before crawling, first on her hands and knees, and then forcing herself to stand and stumble, toward the door.

"GET BACK HERE, BITCH!" Kakimoto shouted. "YOU'RE JUST ANOTHER ONE THAT TAKAOMI TOOK FROM ME!"

What's he talking about?! Kurosaki wondered, but she didn't have the time to figure it out. She desperately attacked the doorknob, but her hands were shaking so hard that she couldn't open it.

Then, from the other side, "Kurosaki? Is that you?"

"Takaomi!" Kurosaki yelled. She wasn't a crying girl, but tears filled - ever so subtly - at the edges of her eyes. Delinquents, she could handle. But older men with unknown motives? Something about that scared her...It's not just a game anymore...I can't win... "Takaomi!" she shouted louder. "Help me! Please!"

Takaomi laughed. "Begging, already? If you want my help, then say, 'Please give me your assistance, Takaomi-sama!' Just like that!"

"P-please give me y-your assistance, Takaomi-sama!" Kurosaki yelled as Kakimoto drew closer.

Oce more, Takaomi merely laughed. "It doesn't work if you stutter. Say it right, now."

"Please give me your assistance, Takaomi-" Kurosaki began urgently as Kakimoto approached, but her sentence was cut off as Kakimoto swung the sake bottle at her head, shattering it into shards again her skull. I forgot that he had a weapon, she thought to herself as she blinked heavily. How could I forget... A few seconds later, she fell over, sprawled against the door.

"Kurosaki?" Takaomi said, listening for a reply. "I didn't hear a '-sama' at the end!" When she didn't reply, he scowled at being ignored. "Fine, brat. Have it your way. See if I help you." Grumbling about ungrateful kids in this day and age, Takaomi used his key to get into his apartment, severely pissed off about the whole thing.

He kept trying to make up excuses to go over and check on Kurosaki, but in the end, it just seemed like he was giving in to her, and in his childish mind, he was not going to surrender defeat to her.

Finally, after forty-five minutes, he sighed and knocked on her door, scowling. "Kurosaki, you brat! I made too much dinner and I need someone to choke it down before it's labeled as a biohazard threat. Hey, Kurosaki! Are you in there?!" Mumbling and muttering some more to himself, he finally just kicked open the door, only the door got hooked on something. He shoved it open enough to get through and walked into her apartment. "KUROSAKI, YOU DAMN BRAT! GET OUT HERE SO I CAN BEAT YOU UP!"

Laughter was heard from the adjoining room, so Takaomi stormed in there, ready to lecture the hell out of Kurosaki, but Kurosaki wasn't the one laughing.

"You took them all from me," Kakimoto sang, laughing and smiling even as tears slid down his cheeks like a strange doll. "So now I took her from you~"

"What are you going on about, you rotten bastard?!" Takaomi yelled, grabbing Kakimoto's collar and lifting him up with superhuman strength. That's when he noticed the blood spatters on Kakimoto's shirt and hands. Suddenly, his mind chilled and he had to exercise in not breaking every bone in Kakimoto's body. "WHERE IS SHE?! WHERE IS MAFUYU?!"

"Where she is, I can't say, but she isn't with us anymore~" Kakimoto sang liltingly, a broken music box giving its final encore.

Takaomi threw Kakimoto down and quickly searched the apartment from her bedroom to the front. "Damn it! Where is Mafuyu?!" Then something occurred to him. The door...it stuck...why?

Hoping he was wrong but knowing with a sinking doubt that he wasn't, he ran to the front door and closed it slowly, revealing a crumbled body smashed up against the wall, unseen and ignored.

"No...Mafuyu," Takaomi said, shock slowing his movements, but then he blinked and quickly reached for Kurosaki, picking her up in his strong arms and laying her down on the floor.

Her body was fine, if you ignored the strange path that her arm took from the elbow down, twisting in ways human arms weren't meant to be twisted. It was her head that was the problem.

The right side of her skull had been bashed in with a sharp bottle multiple times, creating too many deep gashes for clotting and platelets to heal as blood stained her short hair.

Short hair...the haircut she got to be a 'normal high school girl,' Takaomi recalled distantly.

Her face was cruelly preserved in a mask of fear, her skin pulled taut, and perhaps worst were her open, unseeing eyes that stared out at Takaomi in accusation.

I called out for help.

Where were you?

Where did you go, Takaomi?

You abandoned me...

Takaomi got up, stumbling away from her. "I...I..." After a few steps, he fell to his knees, tears that had never been shed ow staining his cheeks. "The school...the disciplinary club...everything...what was it all for? What's the point if you're gone? Mafuyu? Mafuyu? A-Answer me, p-please..."

That's how the police discovered the scene half an hour later, with Kakimoto chuckling to himself on the couch while Takaomi was still kneeling on the carpeting, staring at the corpse.