He's just a kid after all, you muse and try not to bat an eyelash when the mechanical maiden informed them that Ken had escaped – through the window no less. Indignation flies across the room, along with a few heated sentences and try as you might to tune it all out and keep a calm face, your clasped hands are shaking as you looked down on it, revealing how bewildered you are.

Of course, of course it wasn't his fault. He didn't know – didn't understand, you cover himself in your thoughts with sugar-coated words but bile rises anyway in your throat as an image of a very close friend lying in his own pool of blood flashes in your mind.

You get out of your poisoned mind and settled on staring intently at your shaking fingers and tried to steady them – as if that would steady the pulsing inside your head which just won't go away.

"We should go after him!" shouted a frenetic junior. She rarely got unsettled – she must really want to go look for him.

"What do you think?" The question is directed at you and you immediately answer in a robotic voice, "I'm going to look for him."

You surprise yourself with your words – as was your other dorm mates.

Do you really want to look for him? You question yourself as you unconsciously chewed on your lips as you simultaneously chewed on your thoughts. Save the boy who destroyed your friend? Save your friend who destroyed a boy who was at peace with his own sleep-death? The two questions were different and yet so alike in many ways. But risking was something you're accustomed to. It's the meaning behind the action that troubles you.

You stand up – finally, the shaking in your fingers stop and your gaze settles on the eyes of the silver-haired man whose best friend just went into a coma. He looks world-weary with a dark shadow painted under his eyes that were still slightly red along with his nose. Shoulders that were always pulled up in confidence has drooped down, and along with feet that used to be light but was now dragging, he looked like he'd given up.

You lift your lips in what you think is a smile and ignore the pain raking through your chest – death, death, death, his death, you'll get over it – and said, "All of you can sleep now, I'll take care of this." To him, you say, "Akihiko-senpai, could you accompany me?" It pains you to act formal around him, but both of you had insisted on using honorifics whenever in the presence of dorm mates. Otherwise, it was just plain Akihiko. Aki-pyon if you were being cheeky with him.

He nods stiffly, swipes his blazer off the chair and walks ahead of you without saying goodbye to anyone and without looking back to see if you were behind him. The door of the dorm slams coldly.

Tears threaten to spill through your eyes but you are still inside the dorm where everybody expects you to be strong, to be brave – if you break down right now, their already thin attempt at normalcy would come crashing down. You give them all a smile but your eyes are glazed, you don't see their faces at all and maybe a "don't worry" slipped out of your lips but you don't really know as you follow Akihiko out into the night.

You see that he had indeed waited for you. He was sitting on the steps and if it weren't for his silver hair, you would have tumbled over him. You stepped down and looked up at him with your arms at your sides. He had his head in his fingers and he was looking down.

"Senpai," you swallow the words and try again. "Akihiko-senpai."

He looks up at you and again, you try for a smile. But as soon as it is on your face, you instantly smother it. Your smile feels broken. He blinks at you and for a while you both stand in awkward silence. You clear your throat. Maybe this way a bad idea. Why did you even invite him along to fetch the boy who killed his only family? He feels angry, that's why he's silent. Maybe you should tell him that you are fine on your own. You open your lips –

"Hey, we should get going. It's getting late." He says and stands up, brushing the dirt off his pants. He offers you his blazer and when you don't make an attempt to reach for it, he instead takes initiative and drapes it around your shoulders. His hands brush the hollow between your shoulders for a brief moment and you shiver.

"You'll get cold." He says as explanation but you don't hear it because you're happily nuzzling close to his warmth, his scent, his blazer.

"Thank you." You whisper.

It feels wrong to love someone when you know that someone has a friend whom you have previously loved. But you did and even if it is wrong, it feels so right. You are cheating, you think, cheating on someone who reciprocated your feelings to someone who may or may not feel the same way about you.

You walk side by side as you peruse every nook and cranny in Iwatodai, occasionally breaking out into senseless chatter – most of which you've initiated – and sporadic amusement, to break up the storm swirling inside you.

"I don't think Ken is in Chagall Café," you surmise, swirling the dregs of your coffee inside the mug and cracked a weary smile.

Akihiko lifts his mug in assent and smiles at you, although his smile never really reached his eyes.

And it's that smile that does you in. All at once, the warmth of the café could not thaw the coldness inside you. You feel terrible – dizzy. All of this was a stupid, idiotic façade. The smiles, the coyness, the laughter: wrong, wrong, wrong. You think you should be out there looking for Ken. You should be frantic. It's nearly midnight and still no sign of him. He is your friend – why don't you treat him like one?

You stand up and after slamming your cup down, left your table, with Akihiko's feet echoing yours after a minute or so.

Outside the mall, the sky is dark and a cold spell inhibited Tatsumi Port Island. You suck in freezing breath after breath, trying to keep in the tears. Are you broken? The pain returns to your chest and it blurs to the point where you don't know if it is heart burn or the emptiness roaring back in.

His footsteps stops somewhere next to you and you half-expect him to say what's wrong or it'll be alright, but he just says, "Let's keep looking." And it's somehow better than the latter.

He walks on forward but your feet are planted firmly on the ground. You wrap your shaking arms around your body to keep it from falling to pieces and shut your eyes.

"Senpai, what if we don't find him? I – I promised Fuuka. I can't disappoint them." You usually are calm. You usually show the least emotion when dealing with stress because you believe that any time wasted on crying should be directed towards solving the problem. People thought you as a happy, carefree girl – which is true. You haven't even cried a single salty tear since that day ten years ago.

And now everything falls into motion because of one boy.

"Mina – "

"Senpai. You should go home. I'll take care of this myself. Tell them not to worry, 'kay?" You open your eyes and regret it because you see his face contort in pain.

You wish you had died along with your parents and brother.

"Minako." The pain vanishes from his face and he walks so close to you, you could see the silver flecks in his grey eyes. He places his hands on either side on your shoulders and leans close to your face, noses almost touching.

But no one flinches. It isn't Akihiko, the awkwardly adorkable guy nor you, the fearless new girl, who looks away first. You both say each other's name at the same time – his pleading, yours condescending. Feeling a little discomfited, you break your gaze and turned your eyes to your feet. You feel the weight of his hands leave your shoulders, and then hear his footsteps next, louder at first then softer as it recedes into the darkness.

All alone now, you turn to the one place where your thoughts always seem to calm down: Naganaki Shrine.

The inky darkness has spread throughout Japan, with only the soft moonlight illuminating the island, turning everything a shade of black, white or gray. You reach the steps and breathe in the night air, already feeling calmness spread out through your body. You suck in another breathe and willed it to reach your toes before exhaling. Feeling a smile on your face, you agilely climbed up the top of the jungle gym and surveyed the view.

I could get used to this, you think, referring to the quiet and the calmness the night brings.

"Minako-san?"

You snap back into reality and whipped your head around to the spot where your ear heard the voice. You could just make out a feathery outline of something under the shade of the tree when the shadow moves away from the tree and moonlight illuminates his features.

"Ken," it is almost a sigh, the way you said his name. You arrange your face to look like you're happy to see him and say, "you found me."

Ken looks away and you see nothing but an innocent boy – the moon light had made him look younger, cleaner, and childlike.

"I wasn't trying to find you." He says simply, plaintively. But then he looks up. "Even so, I'm glad. Tell them not to worry. I'll be leaving Tatsumi Port Island tomorrow…I've caused too much pain." He hefts his backpack, his voice urgent but you can sense and undercurrent of sadness beneath it.

It was a long time before you spoke as you turn his words over and over in your head. You know in your heart that there are words out there to heal this boy, to persuade him to stay, but out of the thousand words that came to mind, you chose: "Come up here, Ken. The view's wonderful."

You hear the very distinct sound of hand against metal and before long found Ken sitting beside you, eyes trained ahead of him and his chin held high. You study his profile for a sec and then looked straight on ahead.

"You made me worry," you say, and then flinched as you hear your voice. It had an almost desperate tone to it. "Fuuka was so…distraught. If we hadn't calmed her down, she would be sitting right here next to you instead of me."

Ken says nothing, but his jaw flexes.

"I'm not going to persuade you to stay." You say in your softest voice. "We won't tie you to us if that's what you desire…but just know that if you ever change your mind, don't ever forget that you have a family waiting for you back at the dorm."

You place your hand over his hand and squeezed his fingers. His cheeks reddened considerably. "It won't be fair to you if we cut off your wings. But…we'll miss you."

"Take care of yourself." You say as your parting words. You kiss his cheek and found that it is wet with tears.

You climb down the jungle gym, expecting him to call out your name but he doesn't. You don't look back as you walk but impulse won and as you looked back, Ken was still sitting high up in the jungle gym – looking just like a kid – haloed in moonlight, with his hand pressed to the spot where you had kissed him.

"He's just a kid," you said to no one in particular and departed Naganaki Shrine.