[Image] The White Key [Image] [Image] part 1 It is dark when I reach our house. I had lingered around school until my roommate had completed his classes so we could go back to our rented house together. I skipped my late-night track practice, unwilling to run in the darkened and shadowed streets, accompanied only by the blowing leaves. I have no intention of being alone until I know exactly what Yoshikawa wants from me. No. I do know. Hikaru unlocks the door and holds it open for me, chattering all the while. "Your hands look excruciatingly painful. Whatcha do, fail the Chem midterm? I tell you, that thing was horrible. I didn't finish. I got bogged down on the first few problems and then I ran out of time, and guess what? The highlight of the entire fuckin' test was when I found out that all the heavy points were on the problems in the back! I'm SO screwed!" He remains talking all the way inside, on the way to the tv, up the stairs to the bedroom, and then to the bathroom, where the slamming of the door muffles the cheery booming. I step inside, and carefully lock the doors and windows. I can still see his eyes. Please god don't let him still want me after all these years. His eyes.... ************ /Rain./ /Cold./ /How can you miss sunlight if you never knew what it was?/ A week passes. I remain alert. He was, or is a professional killer. Little would have changed. And I am intimately familiar with his techniques. A lull before the storm is just one of many. I work and study in a haze, angry at myself for allowing him to thus control my emotions. Teachers and friends don't notice the change. Sakagawa-sensei watches me more closely, but even her piercing eyes cannot penetrate my defenses. How little they know me. What chance have I ever given them to truly understand me? Comprehending someone's psyche is a power I have no intention of letting others have over me. I can maintain a mask skillfully. Always extruding an aura of cool detachment, nothing changes, at least on the outside. Inside I am screaming. He haunts me in my dreams. Some are not as bad, such as a flash of a smile, a glint in his eye, the gleaming of a blade. In others he speaks to me. Did you really think you could run away, he mocks. The most influential man in Japan and you had the temerity to try and defy me? Soft derisive laughter. No one can run. No one can hide. Not even you, little one. Always, I am restrained. Restrained from kicking at him, restrained from putting my hands down to cover myself, unable to hide my shame. I can only turn my head and close my eyes. Except, in dreams you can't close your eyes, can you? My willing blindness is no longer an option. I can feel him. I can smell him. I can hear him. And I know that the most feared assassin in the country has never, ever, failed to capture his prey. ************** As a result, I am not surprised to hear his low tenor voice sound behind me as I am walking back from the grocery store. "You can make this easy on yourself." I walk on. He would never shoot me in the back; he enjoys looking into his victim's eyes and see them widen with terror and understanding. A large hand grasps my forearm and whirls me around. I am crushed against him, unable by his powerful strength to move away. The wool of his coat scratches against my chin as I crane to look him full in the eye. I silently curse myself for refusing the company of my roommate. He had finals and had needed to study. Things had been too quiet, for too long. I had let down my guard. Fatally. He grins, sharklike, as my gaze does not waver. I am no longer afraid, only numb. What use is fear? It is a survival reflex, but ultimately incapacitating. There is no room for fear, for cowardice, not in situations like these. There is a sense of fulfillment, a coming together of conjoining parts. Inexorable fate and destiny. I would have laughed a year ago, when I had felt I was relatively safe. His grey eyes contain a tinge of cruel amusement and his mouth quirks. "Insolent as ever, I see. I am pleased that the passage of time hasn't changed you. But," his mouth hardens and his eyes becomes even more smugly amused while his hand tightens on my arm hard enough to bruise, "that makes you just that much more amusing to break, hm?" I press my lips together, determined not to make a sound. Maintain the mask. Do not reveal how you feel, was a lesson beaten into me at a young age. Yoshikawa had been a good teacher. A low click and a hard point presses against my side menacingly. I smile. Does he truly think I care so much for my life? I step away, daring him to shoot me and end it all. Please. If only it was so easy. He yanks me forward again by the arm and I slam against his chest... and a sharp needle. I can feel the cool liquid burning into my muscles like icy fire and spreading like a disease. As I slump bonelessly to the ground, I can only see blurry distortions, the world woozing in and out of existence. He leans down and whispers in my ear, "No, my beautiful one. You will not die so easily." ************* /blank/ /shuffle/ My arms are numb. /blank/ Strange, unfamiliar clothes. The room smells different. There are different noises; softer and deeper. The sounds are soothing, rising and falling in pitch. Something seems familiar about it. /blank/ They are voices. Whispering voices. I cannot move. Whatever anesthesia Yoshikawa has given me, it is potent. I am frozen. I cannot see, I cannot move. I can only hear. The voices hover over me. "A new key?" "Just acquired." "A private one?" "Yes. Personally captured by his master. Or recaptured, for that matter." "Recaptured? Isn't he a little too old to be a neophyte?" "The master does not wish him to be indocrinated." "Ah. Are they not worried about his rebelling again?" "That is his Master's problem, not ours." A pause. "He is beautiful, isn't he?" "Yes." "One almost pities him. His master does not seem to be the type to be kind." Master... no. I had sworn long ago that no one would ever subjugate me again. Never. I struggle to move. A tremendous force of willpower and determination exhausted, I manage to crook a finger. "Wait. Did he move?" I try again. "He's awakening. We'd better leave." No. Wait. Don't go. "Should we? I feel bad. No one should have to wake up alone in a strange place after all he's been through." Yes, stay. Please. Don't let me wake up in the dark. Blind. "We HAVE to go. What if his master comes back?" "You leave then. I'm staying." Footsteps rising and falling, then there is the sound of a door opening and closing. The one with the kind voice resumes speaking, this time to me. "Can you hear me? You might be a vegetable for all I know. What does one say to a vegetable?" A soft deprecating laugh. "So. The infamous White Key is returned." The incriminating tattoo gives a final throb, a heated counterpoint to the numb ice that is my skin. Vaguely I am aware of a soft-skinned hand running slowly up my arm as I fade out into black...