Mekura has a hard time tolerating Yakumo.

Whenever she goes to the nightclub, he gives her this weird smile like he knows something she doesn't. She does her best to ignore it, but it really does bother her. Yakumo has never settled right with her—it's something about his face, she tells herself, something about his eyes, but she can't help the traitorous thoughts that whisper that he might actually know something. She looks at him, and the little creatures within her—and they must be harvestman spiders, she's decided, because of the way they shoot through her veins and make her shiver in fear—begin to stir in agitation.

"Oh!" Sanagi says, catching someone's gaze across the dance floor, "There's someone I wanted you guys to meet," and she disappears for a moment in the throng of moving bodies before returning with a stranger. It's a slender, well-groomed man with a buzz cut and some conspicuous side burns. "This is Nico," Sanagi says with a grin, "We met last week. He's in the 13th ward looking for something fun to do, and I told him we love having fun."

She introduces him to the whole group, but Mekura notices the newcomer's attention is fixed squarely on Yakumo, who stands directly opposite him. Her eyes move from Sanagi, obliviously going on about how binge eating is so yesterday, Yakumo's appraising stare, and Nico's slowly growing smile.

"It's a pleasure to meet you," he says, but he isn't really talking to all of them, "I've seen you come around a few times now, but I haven't worked up the nerve to come over and say hello."

"We don't bite," Yakumo says with a chuckle, "If you're looking for fun, though, you might be out of luck. The 13th is a much quieter place nowadays."

"There's got to be something to do around here," Nico says with a small pout, "Sanagi told me binge eating was all the rage not that long ago."

"If you're into that, I guess. I'm not much of a fan myself."

Sanagi goes to Yakumo's side, obviously feeling left out. "You sound like you found something else to do," she prompts.

"Well, it's nothing new," Yakumo says, "But it is pretty big right now. Other wards seem to think we're famous for it."

"What is it?"

Mekura watches them all lean in as Yakumo whispers something; she doesn't hear, but she doesn't need to. The only other person left at the table, Naki, taps on her shoulder to get her attention. "You look bored," he says, "You wanna leave?"

She glances back at Sanagi once more, seeing her friend's eyes widen with excitement the way they did when she first told her about binge-eating a month ago, but it's just an act; she sees the weariness in her grin and the way she anxiously digs her fingers into her arm. Beside her, Nico is still looking at Yakumo in a way not unlike Sanagi did a month ago.

Some part of her wants to help Nico out, if only to get Sanagi away from Yakumo, but she thinks that would just be cruel, both to Sanagi and the newcomer. Besides, could she really do that to her friend?

Her best friend?

She gets a strange feeling—not anger, not jealousy, something between the two or maybe just beyond them. The sound of spiders skittering around inside of her head. "Yeah," she says, "Let's go," and follows Naki out without saying anything to Sanagi.

Sometimes, Sanagi comes by and just sits on her couch in the living room. They watch the news together and don't hardly exchange a word, and then Sanagi will be on her way again. Mekura wonders if she's fighting with Yakumo badly enough that she can't even stay with him anymore. In the interest of politeness, she doesn't ask.

This time, Sanagi does speak, and what she says isn't necessarily surprising. "I think he's sleeping with Nico behind my back."

Mekura glances over cautiously. "Oh," she says.

"It pisses me off. Not that he does it, just that he pretends it's a secret, like he thinks I'm too dumb to notice. He's acting childish, like he can't just say he wants to break up."

Mekura looks back at the TV, where two celebrities are chasing kittens around a small room. "Maybe," she says, "You should take the initiative."

"I can't, Meku. I told you that already."

"I know you did, but I maybe you should reconsider."

"Look, just drop it," Sanagi says with a heavy sigh, "He'll get bored eventually, and I'll figure things out then."

"Why are you so obsessed about staying with him?"

"Because he's my ticket out of here, okay?" Sanagi snaps, "Now drop it."

Mekura turns to her, brows furrowed. "What does that mean?"

"I don't want to talk about it anymore."

"You said he's your ticket out." Her eyes widen. "You do want to leave."

"What? No," Sanagi says, and ignores the TV to glare down Mekura, "I said I want to stay this time, didn't I?"

"But you just said—!"

"Forget what I just said!" Sanagi hisses, standing from the couch, "I didn't ask for your advice. I can't leave him, okay? That's not an option for me right now. You need to trust me when I say I know what I'm doing."

"I would trust you," Mekura argues, "But you keep doing things that are bad for you, Sanagi, and then it all goes wrong, and you act like it isn't your fault or you can't figure out why."

"I shouldn't expect you to understand," Sanagi mutters, and then she's gone, stomping down the apartment stairs while the door slams behind her.

Maybe Mekura does understand.

Naki has always been a reassuring constant, the only unchanging thing Mekura has to hold onto, so she holds on for dear life, knuckles white, eyes wrenched shut, and waits for the ride to be over.

She's upset because of Yakumo, because of the way he barged in and dragged Sanagi away—except, when she thinks back, wasn't it Sanagi who first grabbed onto him? Wasn't it Sanagi who always showed interest, and Yakumo was just going along with it, waiting for the Harvestman to appear?

Really, the reason she's upset is Sanagi and the way she's changing, has changed, into some unrecognizable, undesirable person who pushes her away and won't let her in. She isn't the Sanagi from high school who wasn't so sure of herself, who constantly begged Mekura to be her friend and stay by her side no matter what. That Sanagi would have broken up with Yakumo by now, wouldn't she? She would have realized he was no good, that Mekura was the one who really understood her. When her parents died, she spent the weekend at Mekura's and cried for days straight, and she held onto Mekura and told her over and over how she was all she had left, how she was all that mattered anymore.

This Sanagi doesn't need Mekura anymore, though; she's overcome her fears and gone into the world determined to do foolish things, like sleep with humans and get upset when she eats them, or date someone who had never really been interested in her but in the urban legend behind her. It's Sanagi's business, of course, and Sanagi can do what she likes, because Sanagi is strong enough to deal with the consequences on her own.

But that doesn't mean Mekura likes it.

And so Mekura, too, does things that are a bit out of character, calling up Naki at the awful hours she used to resent Sanagi for calling at, saying that she needs to see him more than anything. Naki is always awake for whatever reason, always answering on the first ring like he was waiting for the call, and he always wants to see her, too. She yanks him into her bedroom by the wrist and is on top of him fumbling with his pants in an instant, and he tangles his fingers in her hair and tries to tell her about how good it feels between gasps. Naki's pace is hard to keep up with if she wants to breathe, but she can handle that if it means she can distract herself for a minute.

She doesn't mind the taste at all, though. Ghoul tastes just as good as anything else—she doesn't know why she thinks that, but she does. Naki glances down his body at her, eyes heavily-lidded, but manages to come alive just long enough to wrap an arm around her and pull her in for a scorching kiss. "You're the best, Meku," he moans against her lips, and she drinks up the praise as though dying from thirst, feels herself grinding against him, desperate to chase any feeling that keeps her from thinking, eager to forget.

Forget what, though? Sanagi is the first thing that comes to mind, Sanagi who doesn't need her anymore, but maybe things before Sanagi, too. Maybe she wants to forget the old Sanagi and the new Sanagi, the years apart, the years together, Sanagi who offered to be her friend in kindergarten with her short black hair and big smile, who was always looking at Mekura like she was scared of something, like she had anything to fear from Mekura who only wanted to be her friend and she was being ungrateful, ungrateful for everything Mekura had done for her over the years, ungrateful wretch, how dare she run off with some ghoul who doesn't even know her, not like Mekura does—!

"Meku?" Naki asks softly, and she only realizes she's crying when he swipes his thumb across her cheek, wiping tears away. "What's wrong? You wanna get off still? I didn't forget, I swear."

"It's not that," she starts to say, but Naki is already raring and ready to go for round two, flipping their positions so she's under him on the bed, and Mekura lets herself lose whatever train of thought she was just having when he starts kissing and nibbling at her neck.

She thinks it's possible that Sanagi thinks too much, too, that she does dangerous things to take her mind off of it. There must be something that Sanagi is afraid of, even Sanagi today, that drives her to do these things, to pursue Yakumo, to try to keep him interested when he was never really into her in the first place, just the Harvestman.

"More," Mekura demands, arms and legs wrapped around Naki, "More, please, more, I don't want to think right now, I don't, I don't—!"

"Meku?" Naki asks, but he stops, and that's the opposite of what she wants, that lets her hear spiders laying eggs in her head, their bristling, little legs tickling the insides of her ears.

"Don't stop," she begs, "Please, Naki, just keep going, I need—!" Her breath catches in her throat when he starts to move again, harder and faster than before.

"Like this?" Naki asks huskily, "Is this what you want?"

"Just like this," she breathes, and loses herself in the rhythm.

She doesn't know when she turned into Sanagi, relying on people she doesn't know very well to distract herself from her problems, but the thought scares her.

"You're so good, Meku, you feel so good," Naki groans, and he leans in to kiss her, bending her lower half far enough that she whimpers, but it chases away the spiders again, and she welcomes the pain. "I love you, Meku."

Love?

Mekura can't quite think straight right now, but she tries, because she never thought about it. Does he love her, or is he just saying that in the heat of the moment? Does she love him? Is she supposed to say it back, even if she doesn't? She doesn't think she's ever been in love before, wouldn't know what it looks like. Still, she feels something for Naki—maybe nothing more than gratitude for keeping her mind in the present where it belongs, far away from the hazy holes in her memory.

"I love you, too," she ends up saying, and then Naki is burying his face in the crook of her neck, and Mekura loses track of even the present for a moment.

Mekura wonders sometimes why Sanagi ever introduced Nico to Yakumo.

A part of her thinks she couldn't have possibly known what would happen, but she must have noticed by the way he weaseled into every conversation and eyed her almost enviously those first few meetings when Yakumo said something to her. Mekura can't imagine what he has to be jealous of; Yakumo is the farthest thing from affectionate, even when he's pretending he likes Sanagi. All of his touches are off-putting and cold.

But another part of her wonders if it was on purpose, if Sanagi had seen Nico staring across the dance floor from their table each night and seen the way he looked at Yakumo, if she'd known all along that something was bound to happen if she gave them half the chance to talk. She just can't understand what purpose that would serve, or why she would even want to add somebody else to the equation when she didn't want to leave Yakumo. In the end, she can't decide which idea is more bizarre.

"The 11th ward has gotten pretty interesting lately," Nico comments, sitting on Yakumo's right, "The ghouls I run with are all heading that way, it seems. Feels like something big is going to happen."

"And what ghouls do you run with?" Yakumo asks with a chuckle.

Nico smiles and presses a finger to his lips. "That's a secret," he says, "I probably shouldn't say much unless you're part of the club."

Sanagi hasn't been interested in the conversation up until that point; she has a blood-filled thermos with her again, elbows on the table, massaging her temples with both hands like she has a headache. But when Nico mentions a group, she perks up, glancing at him slyly. "A club, huh?" she asks curiously, "Like a ward council?"

Nico shakes his head. "No, they're far more entertaining than a ward council." His smile widens. "Why? Interested? Not just anyone can get in, you know. There's an interview process. If you're really serious, we can all make a trip over to the 11th sometime." He glances at Mekura and Naki, extending the invitation, though Mekura shakes her head.

"No thank you," she says politely, though Sanagi looks ecstatic, grinning.

"Hey, I'll take you up on that," she says, "Let me know when you go again. Beats sticking around here."

"But, Sanagi," Mekura tries to say, earning an annoyed look.

"I'm not just going to up and leave, Meku," she says, exasperated, "I'll come back, alright? I just want to have some fun."

But Mekura doesn't believe her. She sees that look in Sanagi's eyes, that dangerous glint she always gets when she sees something she calls "fun," like when she first glimpsed Yakumo or whenever she sees her next target. She doesn't know Nico very well, but she has her doubts that this ghoul group is anything wholesome, if the company he chooses to keep in the 13th is any indication.

Sanagi is planning to leave. She's planning to take off in the night, and never come back, and just leave her best friend behind. Why, Mekura wonders, would she do that?

It hits her suddenly, with the force of a hurricane and the weight of a mountain, and all at once, Mekura's fragile world begins to crumble.

Naki's right, she's just like him, the annoying tagalong that Sanagi picked up somewhere along the way and couldn't get rid of, and even though she might have gotten used to her and might have liked having her around when it was convenient, she doesn't need her, not really.

They aren't friends.

Something in her snaps when she realizes it, and it feels good, so good that she starts to laugh.

Conversation grinds to a halt and everyone looks at her, and she shakes her head, trying to stop, wiping her eyes. "It's nothing," she says, fighting the tears stinging at the corners of her eyes. Sanagi is not her friend; it's liberating, but somehow terrifying.

Across the table, Sanagi glances at Yakumo and Naki. "I think someone's had a little too much to drink tonight," she says with a grin, and they humor her with a chuckle. "Need an escort home?"

"No," Mekura says firmly, "Not tonight," and she runs before anyone can stop her.

She gets that feeling again, that overwhelming sensation that turns her vision red. Her skin is crawling, her hands are itching, like there are spiders on every inch of her body, living in her heart and eating her brain. She rushes out into the street and keeps going, and she doesn't know where she's running to, just that she's running, and she doesn't care where she ends up as long as it lets her get away for a while. She laughs, and she cries, and she can't seem to stop. She feels like she has nothing to lose.

Mekura starts to shake as all of the spider eggs in her head hatch at the same time.

Sanagi ends up leaving the 13th ward again, just like Mekura thought she would, and she never does come back.

She vanishes quietly overnight without leaving anything behind. Mekura busies herself the first few days with Naki, sleeping with him, going on walks with him, pretending things are normal and Sanagi will show up again tomorrow, probably with a new trend from some other ward that she wants to try out in the 13th. Sanagi may not have really been her friend, but some part of her is still desperately clinging to the other ghoul, the person she grew up with and went to school with and relied on in some twisted way, and it isn't easy to let go.

But then Naki, too, vanishes, and Mekura has nothing to distract herself with, so out of desperation, she meets Yakumo at the nightclub she's been avoiding. She takes her usual table where she would sit with Sanagi, who always leaned over the table on one elbow, smiling lazily. Mekura dislikes some things about Sanagi, but she does think she has a nice smile. She misses it.

Yakumo walks in with Nico hanging off of his arm, and the smaller of the two spots her first, calling out with a wave and a smile, and she returns it the best she can. "All by yourself today?" Yakumo asks curiously.

She frowns. "That's why I called you, actually. Sanagi and Naki have both skipped town now, and I don't know where either of them are."

"Skipped town?" Yakumo repeats slowly, sounding incredulous, but then he smiles. "Naki I knew about, but Sanagi is news to me." Mekura thinks it couldn't possibly be news, but lets it go for now. "Naki didn't just leave, though, he was busted."

"Busted?" Mekura echoes nervously, "What do you mean?"

"Arrested," Nico elaborates, "Carted off to Cochlea, last we heard."

Mekura bites her lip and looks down at the table, unsure of how to react. She's glad he didn't just leave without a word, not without meaning to, at least, but knowing where he actually is leaves her unsettled.

"Sanagi, though," Yakumo says thoughtfully, "That's a tougher one."

Mekura glances up at him. "But…you left with her, didn't you? You all went to the 11th ward together? I left a few texts, but she hasn't answered since then."

Yakumo regards her coolly for a moment in silence. "We did," he says, "But that's the last I saw her."

She looks to Nico. "You haven't heard anything, either?"

They both stare back at her silently for a solid minute, but eventually Nico smiles, and his eyes are shining with pity. He glances up at Yakumo, who looks back at him with a matching, knowing smile, before he turns to Mekura. "I haven't," he says, "Sorry."

He doesn't sound sorry at all. Mekura had hoped before that Sanagi would crawl out of the woodwork in a few days, maybe moping about losing Yakumo to someone she'd introduced him to, but she'd get over it. She'd fall for someone new, someone human who would be gone in a few weeks, like always.

Now, she isn't so sure.

"I'm thinking I'll be doing the same thing, though," Yakumo says, "Heading out. I did what I came here to do. What about you?"

Mekura shrugs uncomfortably. "Stay, like usual. I don't have any reason to move." She pauses. "But wait, what do you mean you did what you came here for?"

"I saw the Harvestman. That's all I was really here for."

"You saw him?" Mekura asks in surprise, "When?"

His lips split into a wicked grin. "You know, I felt sorry for you when I first came here. Sanagi seemed to bully you a lot."

Mekura shakes her head. "It's not like that, really. We…I'm her best friend."

"I get it." He chuckles. "She's the one I feel sorry for now."

Before Mekura can ask what he means, he changes the subject, "Life is more interesting with other ghouls around. You should think about making some more friends, maybe join a group."

"You should carefully consider who you associate with," Nico pipes up, "And think hard before making a commitment."

Yakumo laughs. "There's really not that many options."

Nico only smiles.

"Time to go, I guess," Yakumo says, "We'll be back sometime to visit, Meku."

"Right," Mekura says, though she's hoping she never sees him again.

Nico suddenly stops before they get too far, turning to glance at her over his shoulder. "You know, though, if you're going to stay in town," he mentions, "I hear cannibalism is the new black."

Mekura freezes. "Pardon?"

"Nico," Yakumo says, tone playfully scolding.

"Sorry, it just slipped out," he says, "See you around. Say hello the Harvestman for us."

They walk out the door after that, leaving Mekura alone—all alone—with her confusion and paranoia and spiders.

Sanagi is never seen again; not in the 13th, nor in any other part of Tokyo. But people still tell stories about the Harvestman, still claim to see him looming on rooftops or ripping other ghouls to pieces, weaving a spiderweb of blood across the ward. Mekura thinks that the whole thing is some kind of cruel joke perpetuated by Yakumo from wherever he went.

She doubts she'll ever really know what happened to her best friend.

And that's a wrap.