#ch1 do2

He knew it. He fucking knew it. His heart was seized up in his ribs, unmoving, as he stared down at the corpse that used to be Michi. He swallowed hard, throat dry. It had happened, really happened.

Aiichiro had seen his fair share of shit, to be sure, but not murder. It was low, lower that low, and he felt his vision going red. He clenched his fists and dug his nails into his palms. He need to stay calm. This- this was not the time.

He left the room, paced all the way down the hall. A loud thud was heard, the walls rattled, and then a few more of the same. And then he returned, knuckles oozing blood, and was calmed again. Time to- get to work, he supposed. He wasn’t scared of a corpse. Death, maybe, but a corpse was just a thing, not a person anymore.

“Fuck this shit,” he muttered, and made his way toward the body. He peered at the junk on the table in front of Michi and then gave his body a patdown, looking for anything on the body.

A bottle of anxiety meds in one pocket. He turned back to the table and saw that he’d laid out a few specific tarot cards. But Aiichiro knew jack shit about tarot. And- he frowned. Was Michi sweaty? Clammy? Maybe he’d been stressed, or maybe poisoned. Hmm.

He didn’t want to do this. He wanted to bury his head and pretend it wasn’t real, he wanted to beat the shit out of something, he wanted to do anything but open this envelope, but one foot dragged forward in front of the other and he stumbled to his room through a haze of fear and anger.

Fingers shaking despite himself, Aiichiro tore the envelope open and photos spilled out. Photos of... oh, god, he felt sick, felt the bile rising in his throat. These were-

That one was Isamu, walking home from school. There was a picture of the Maeda and Suzuki from the council. Ogawa and Shirozaki tuning up their bikes; he could see the garage behind them. That one was all of the boys. None of them were looking at the camera. They had no idea these pictures were being taken. 

“Wh-what the hell is this-”

He dropped the photos, nearly tore them up, changed his mind, shredded the envelope, and buried his fist in the wall with a resounding thud. Again. And again. And again. Felt the impact each time, felt his knuckles strain, felt the skin break and the blood leak, and he needed it. He needed the pain, needed it because his heart stung with terror.

He didn’t- he never really thought of himself as having friends. Felt he wasn’t friendly enough to have friends. But seeing these- seeing these reminded him that he did care about these people. And now this sick fuck was going to hurt them.

He flexed his fingers. He was going to have to change his wrapping now. He took a deep breath, and another one, and then gathered up the photos. Creepy as they were, they were all he had of them down here.

[♫♫♫]

Beating the shit out of things was actually, as it turned out, very good for one’s mood.

The thing in question was a punching bag, dug out of a corner of the gym. Not that there was actually any room for a punching bag, but Aiichiro had made room, pushing aside the big workout machines and clearing a large space in the middle. That meant all of the machines were now in a cluttered heap, but he honestly couldn’t care less.

He wrapped an extra layer of cloth over his knuckles, threw off his jacket, kicked off his boots, and went in hard. With ever hard punch, every burning fibre in his body, he slammed his frustrations into the punching bag again and again.

Why!? Punch- Why was he trapped here!? Punch- Why were they trying to murder each other!? Punch- What had he done to deserve this!? Punch- He wanted to go home! Punch- To see Matsuyama again! Punch- He should never have listened to the letter! Punch- Isamu was right, he was always right, and Aiichiro should have listened to him-!!  Punch- Punch- Punch-

He imagined the was bag was- whoever was doing this to them, and he beat that fucker as hard as he goddamn could.

It was only after a number of minutes that he awareness returned to him. He’d gone red again, and what he’d done to the punching bag could only be described as savage. He’d even torn it open, there and there. And, dripping sweat and breathing hard, he noticed someone else in the room with him.

He approached with caution. Anything involving screaming was probably something to be avoided. But... no, those screams sounded bad. Belatedly, he picked his way through the dome to the source of the noise. What the shit...

Jiang was already picking himself up by the time Aiichiro arrived, but the aftermath was clearly visible. The injury, the sharp stench of blood- a murder attempt. Already? He felt his heart quicken. People were already scared enough to break. He knew how this would play out. The ball was rolling, people would be scared, and scared people made mistakes. He’d seen it happen before. Not long now before someone actually-

He clenched his fists and removed himself from the room. There were dozens of people here, someone else could attend to Jiang. Aiichiro needed to cool off somehow.

Now that Yotsuya had shown his true colours, Aiichiro idly wondered how long it’d be ‘til someone took preemptive measures. How long would that boy live, he wondered. 

[---]

Aiichiro didn’t remember much at all of what had just happened. Angry robots? Strange voices? Murder?

Like hell that was going to happen.

This would all blow over, wouldn’t it? This- this murder thing was bullshit. It had to be! This sort of thing happened in fucked up stories, stories like Battle Royale, it didn’t happen i real life. It couldn’t happen in real life. It just couldn’t!

And honestly, Aiichiro was afraid. Of himself. What if someone took it seriously? What if it was real, and people died? He knew he was an- an angry person. He had temper issues. If it was real, and he lost his temper, he could-

No, no, it wouldn’t come to that. It couldn’t come to that. It wouldn’t. But at the same time he was so scared, scared that he’d lose control of himself, like really lose control, and do something unthinkable. He tried his best to hold onto himself but he knew he slipped sometimes and he hated that he slipped and he didn’t want to but it just happened. 

He had to be more in control than ever. He really had to stick to his strategies.

And that was what he was doing. Kei was out somewhere, doing who knew what, so Aiichiro had the bedroom to himself. With his guitar - miraculously present and undamaged! - on his lap, and his eyes closed, he pushed the world away for a little while.

[♫♫♫]

And so he lost himself in the music. Music made things better, made things calmer. There were so few things he could truly be passionate about, but his music was one of them; his fingers glided up and down the frets like second nature.