Aqua lips stayed pressed against the bottle as he unwillingly glanced over to the screen of his phone. He held in for a moment, then he placed the bottle down on his nightstand and reached for his phone. His eyes snapped closed in pain as the bright blue light of his phone hit them before he had the chance to turn the brightness down. On the display, right next to the dozens of missed calls from Kana, was a call and a single message from Akane, sent 3 hours ago.
A part of him wanted to place the phone back down, throw it against the wall if it must be, but he didn't; he opened the messenger app and pressed on Akane's chat. His indifferent expression cracked slightly as he began to read through her message.
Hey Aqua, I had this crazy thought: What if Aqua believes that now that it's over, he isn't needed anymore?
And to be honest, that thought scares me so much. It scares me because I know this feeling too, and how overwhelming it can be.
I occasionally think back to the day on which you saved me. My memories of it are faint, but one thing I know is that I never truly wanted to die.
I was just so tired of feeling like my presence was making everyone else around me miserable.
Now I know how dumb my behavior was back then, but I also still know how real it felt to me. How I really thought there was no other way for me.
Look, I just don't want to lose you, and I'm certain that you don't really want to die either.
So please, if you ever feel lost or not needed, call me. 24 hours a day; seven days a week. I will be there for you whenever you need someone.
I know all of this might sound crazy to you, but you thinking I'm a bit crazy would be a trillion times better than losing you, while not having done anything to prevent it.
Stay safe, sleep well, and I should really learn how to shut up,
Akane, Heart.
Aqua's face remained mostly expressionless as he finished reading; only a few minor twitches ran over it, which threatened to tear down the entire wall. "Fuck-" he muttered before a loud and ragged breath escaped his lips as his shaky finger hovered over the *call back* button.
I don't know what is right or what's wrong anymore. Should I go through with it, or should I call Akane? Or maybe I should just go to bed and forget this ever happened-
Aqua's thoughts were cut short by a sudden voice that apparently came from the other end of his room. "Are you seriously trying to kill yourself?" A thud echoed through the room as Aqua's phone slipped out of his hands. His eyes remained focused on his lap. Even when the lack of the phone screen engulfed his room in almost complete darkness once again, even when he heard the sound of footsteps echo alongside the thud of his phone.
"Death would be mercy, which you do not deserve."
"Do you seriously think that killing Kamiki changed anything? You still were unable to save her."
Aqua already dreaded the sight he was about to see as he raised his head ever so slightly. The voice was familiar, maybe a bit too much so. His eyes locked with a shadowy figure's, which stood right before him and glared down at him. It definitely smiled at Aqua, though it lacked a mouth; and it surely listened to him, though it lacked ears; and it certainly stared right into his soul, though it lacked eyes. Before him was a sight he had already seen time upon time again before. It was his old self, or rather Gorou Amamiya, or perhaps who he never knew, maybe who he'll at no time be, but most likely who he still is, even now not satisfied.
"The sheer audacity it takes for you to even think about ending it all."
The voice continued to berate Aqua; it deliberately edged him closer to his breaking point with every word, cold precision he only knew from himself. It was going in loops, some figures were Gorou Amimiya, some were a younger version of himself, and some of them were entities he couldn't even name, if they were even human to begin with. It seemed to circle around him; the voices sounded distant, yet Aqua knew they were right there, right in his own head. His own thoughts, at least he hoped that, since that way they couldn't harm anybody else.
"ENOUGH. Why can't I finally die? There is nothing for me left to do. My purpose on this earth is fulfilled. What else do you want me to do? Nothing I ever do seems to improve anyone's situation." Aqua, who had sat still the entire time, finally pleaded.
The silence was broken by another voice, which sounded different from the shadowy voices. It sounded closer, yet more distant. The shadows began to slowly fade away again, as the other voice came closer. Baby Aqua was gone, the distorted version of Ai and Kana respectively, disappeared, and even Kamiki, who hadn't said a single word, left. Only he remained, Gorou Amamiya. To be honest, the only thing that differentiated him from the others was the set of glasses by now. "You know what needs to be done... Coward." He groaned out before his grotesque figure too merged with the shadows of the flickering street lamp, which danced on Aqua's wall.
"Aqua? What do you mean finally die?" A voice pierced the silence once more, but this time it didn't come from inside his head; he was actually able to pinpoint its position. It was his phone, lying right before his feet. The voice was quiet, but definitely panicked. He leaned slightly forward so he could see the ground in front of his bed. On the floor, lying with the display up, was his phone. On it displayed was an ongoing call; the time below it read 1:15 minutes. He swiftly picked it up as he realized he must've called Akane by accident when he dropped his phone earlier. He quickly pressed on his screen to end the call as soon as he got the chance to do so.
Seconds later, his phone vibrated again. Once... twice... thrice... stop. A second later, it started again. Once... Twice...
This time, Aqua picked it up; he himself didn't really know why exactly, it felt like his hand was moving on its own accord, not metaphorically, but literally.
"Aqua!" Akane exclaimed, heavy breaths followed, all while the general quality of the call itself wasn't too great either; it sounds like Akane was standing inside of a wind turbine. "Aqua." Akane panted, "Please, talk to me."
Aqua still didn't respond to her at first; each word of hers that he didn't respond to felt like a cut to him. Only after he had finally cracked the code to the reason why the quality of the call was so bad, did he finally speak. "Akane, you got this wrong. You don't need to-" He was cut off by Akane amidst his sentence. "No. I'm already on my way to your house. No discussion."
...
Aqua really wanted to just hang up, but every time he hovered above the button, he heard her heavy breaths and the quiet steps on asphalt. "Aqua... I'm here... open the door." Is what he heard after a few minutes of panting.
He stayed quiet for a moment before responding. "...Alright," he muttered as he glanced down at the weather app; definitely far too cold to be outside. He reluctantly got up and silently walked through the house so as not to wake anybody up. Through the hallway, then down the stairs, and through the kitchen. For a moment, his hand just hovered above the doorknob; then he pulled it down.
He was met by cold air as the door swung open.
In front of him was Akane; her hair was all messy, and she was still wearing her blue striped pajamas; the red pair of slippers she wore was a horrible match. Frozen in place and her facial expression unreadable, while her small figure was shaking, at least partially from the iciness, though. "Why?" she whimpered out. She could only manage to bring out a single word before she had to look up; tears had begun threatening to flood her eyes.
After a moment, she caught herself again and stepped into the house. Her cold hand wrapped around Aqua's tight as she shut the door behind her. Even after the thud of the door echoed through the entrance hall, Akane didn't stop; instead, she pulled Aqua behind her, up the stairs and down the hallway towards his room. Aqua was too busy deciding if he should resist to actually do something about it before he found himself standing in his room again.
Akane let go of his hand.
She walked over to his closet and grabbed a new pair of pants as she saw the black pair, still damp, sticking to Aqua's legs. "Get out of those wet clothes... You'll get sick," she muttered before she turned to face the wall. She turned back after the quiet rustling behind her had stopped. "Do you want to tell me what's wrong now?" she asked as she trailed over to Aqua's bed and sat down on the edge of it. A faint smile formed on her lips as she petted the spot next to hers.
Aqua stood and looked around the room, yet neither the window nor the door seemed like valid options to escape this predicament, so he just silently accepted his fate and, much to Akane's pleasure, sat down next to her. "It's okay. You don't need to feel embarrassed about it. I, out of all people, would judge you the least for it... You know." Akane inched closer and placed her hand on his lap,
"I seem to help you a whole lot with your problems... What do you think? You know, next time when I need someone... will you be there for me, too?" She asked, her voice a bit distant as she began to gently massage Aqua's upper thigh with her thumb, going in circular patterns.
"Thanks for calling me, by the way," Akane continued, "It couldn't have been easy."
She glanced over at the side of Aqua's skull once more, hoping that he would finally speak to her.
"It was an accident… I didn't mean to call you." Aqua's quiet words made Akane's hand halt for a moment before she quickly continued to rub against his leg in the same tact as before.
"I don't think it was," Akane said as she looked away from Aqua and straight ahead again.
"Believe whatever you want," Aqua responded in a monotone voice, sounding almost as if he were bored.
"...Then I choose to believe that you are a good person." A smile was drawn across Akane's face as she spoke. "Do you like that?" she asked as she bumped her shoulder against his.
"You can continue to believe that. It just won't make it easier for you." Still no emotion behind his words.
Akane's smile faltered ever so slightly as her eyes pointed downwards. "I don't wanna have it easy then…" Akane mumbled as she pulled her hand away from Aqua's lap and began to fidget with her thumbs.
A moment of silence between the two of them passed.
"Also, I don't believe it, I know it," Akane said as she stretched her arms towards the ceiling; her smile had somewhat returned. In the peripheral vision of her almost completely closed eyes, Akane saw Aqua move; move for the first time since they sat down. He turned his head to glance at her, which made a shiver run down her spine and prompted her to quickly lower her hands back to their normal position. "Then tell me," Aqua said, "How can I be good when all I cause is pain? I always hurt everybody around me."
Akane placed her hand back on his thigh as she thought for a long moment. "I think that everybody falls short... That's like totally normal... But if every human that ever caused harm to anybody else would... You know... then we as a race would've died millions of years ago..." Akane fell silent to give Aqua the chance to chime in here. When he didn't, she cleared her throat and continued, "You want to know what really counts? It's your heart. You understand what I mean?... You can fall short as often as it takes, but as long as your intentions are good... as long as your intentions are good, you are good." Akane was so immersed in her monologue that, so as not to drift off into a rambling and stuttering mess, she didn't even notice how, with each word she spoke, Aqua's head fell further until it reached an unnaturally slumped state.
"That's easy for you to say," he began, his voice not even a whisper, "You don't have to carry all of this failure everywhere you go... I drugged my own sister... I killed a man... I traumatized Kana... And the worst part is. I can't even say that I wouldn't do it again. Even one of these would be enough to consider this..." Akane looked back down at the floor, too, mimicking his position. "That's not entirely true…" she said after a long pause.
Her hand froze as she continued.
"What if I told you Kana's injury wasn't your fault?"
A sudden wave of shame and guilt she hadn't expected hit Akane head-on. She lowered her head as far as she could. Please don't look at me, was the only thought that circled through her head at this moment. As Akane's head fell, Aqua's rose. "What do you mean by that?" His voice sounded sharper than before.
Akane audibly swallowed, like the words were stuck in her throat.
"Kamiki, He was only able to get to Kana because of me..."
Aqua remained silent for a moment, but eventually he turned his head away again; the wall right in front of them was very interesting all of a sudden. "You are lying. You are just trying to make me feel less guilty about myself... It won't work, though."
"I wish that was it…" Akane said, as her hands, which were by now both resting in her lap, formed a sweaty and shaky ball.
"Do you remember that green owl thing you found in Kamiki's penthouse? You know... the one right on his desk? The one that seemed so out of place... It felt familiar... Right?"
Akane fell silent for a moment, contemplating whether she should really do this. Then, concluding that it was too late to back out, she continued — Not before she quietly sighed, though. "That's because it's... It's identical to the one I put on your keychain... I also had one on Kana's... I planted it on her when she brushed past me, after we got back from Miura." The moment Aqua had found the weird-looking owl toy rushed back into his mind; the memory of how familiar it felt followed only shortly after. When he had thought enough, he roughly grabbed both of Akane's shoulders and forced her to look at him.
The room was dark; Aqua could barely see the contours of Akane's face, but he knew she wasn't avoiding his gaze; she stared back with an intensity that almost burnt the gloomy night between them away.
"I wish I could reverse time…" She spoke. "And if I could swap places with her, I definitely would. She doesn't deserve this fate... But I would do it again... What now, Aqua... do I deserve death?" Before Aqua even had the chance to blink, much less make out what exactly was happening beyond the seemingly impenetrable layer of darkness in between them, Akane had already quickly grabbed the still-open water bottle off of Aqua's nightstand. "Make your decision," she said before she slowly raised the neck of the bottle to her lips.
The poisoned water, enough to kill an elephant in moments, was mere seconds away from flowing down Akane's dry throat as the time around Aqua seemed to come to a halt.
Outside Aqua's window stood a lone street lamp; its light flickered, and a low humming sound emanated from it, casting light and shadows all around. The light didn't reach Aqua's window; instead, it was lost on the way there.
On Aqua's walls were mementos of simpler times, photos given to him by his friends depicting him alongside them, never fully present. He had always hated them; every time he looked at his walls, they made him doubt his own plan, yet he never took them down. He himself didn't even know why once more.
There were even a few posters of Ai, motivational quotes like "Never lose hope", "Chase your dreams," or "The journey is the goal." He never took them down, nor did he tell Ruby how he felt about them. He was sure that she would take it the wrong way.
The downstairs area was even quieter; you could have probably heard a needle drop. The dishes from the day before were still in the sink; everybody was too busy with life to clean them away. Just the broken cup, which he placed on the counter, with such utter care, was slightly moved, barely noticeable, but enough to change everything.
"Put it down." Aqua's voice broke through the veil of silence cast over the house as his hands slumped off her shoulders.
"See? You don't really believe that something like this deserves the death penalty..." Akane placed the bottle back where she originally grabbed it from, but not before she had put its lid back on. "But this isn't over, if you ever decide to go back on it and kill yourself anyways-" She fell silent for a moment. She didn't want to go down this path; she strained from the threat up until now — She knew that this way she could make sure Aqua lived, she just feared that it could permanently strain their relationship. "... Then I will go with you. For what I've done to Kana."
Aqua's head snapped to face Akane again. "But why? Don't you want to live?" he said, his voice louder; however, still quiet enough not to wake up the entire family.
Akane didn't avert her gaze; instead, she glanced right back and mirrored his intensity once more. "Because we made a contract... I want to live... badly. Yet a contract is a contract, so from now on if you ever go through with it... Just know that you're taking my life too..."
Akane looked away, not able to keep up with the way he stared into her eyes. Instead, her eyes searched through the room, looking for any excuse to finally end this situation. A moment later, they had landed on the digital clock placed on his desk. The time was 12:36 am.
"We should go to sleep now. Everything will be better tomorrow." Akane murmured, her voice very tired, too tired, all of a sudden. She let herself fall back onto Aqua's bed, which was followed by a big fake yawn. "You surely wouldn't want an innocent and young girl to be walking back home all alone at night. Right?"
Aqua continued to sit for a moment, then he quietly sighed as he lay down next to her. He was still dressed in the same hoodie he wore hours prior — At least his pants were dry, now. Both of them climbed under the blanket. Akane hesitated at first, though. She feared that she was definitely pushing the boundaries; yet, eventually, when Aqua didn't seem to mind it, she followed his lead.
For a few awkward minutes, they kept their distance from each other. Eventually, to escape from the freezing iciness of Aqua's room, they had to inch closer to each other, though. All because Aqua had to insist on getting a single-person bed instead of a normal-sized one — It fits the room better, he said. "Akane?" By now, his and Akane's knees were touching. "You are going to tell Kana... She deserves to know."
Akane stayed silent for a while before she responded; her tone of voice made to match his. "You're right. She doesn't deserve to be lied to." Aqua could feel how Akane's warm breath hit his face in an even pattern every few seconds; the faint smell of peppermint was hidden within. He could also feel the warmth of her legs; his were still somewhat wet, therefore cold, from the damp pants he wore an hour ago.
The silence between them wore on.
The pillow beneath Aqua's head felt harder than usual, since a second head resting on it eliminated the possibilities of where its filling could flee to; even though it was still softer than what he believed he deserved, especially now that he once again dragged someone else into this. "Akane, how can it be you are always-" Aqua, who just tried to break the silence between them, was cut short by faint sobs.
Faint sobs that paralyzed Aqua. He could only listen to the wailing darkness as the built-up emotions within the depths of her mind crashed over Akane. "It's okay…" he tried to console as he placed his hand on Akane's. "I think I understand… What you have been going through for the past few days, I mean..."
"You can let it all out, I won't judge you for it either..." he added, clearly attempting to take her earlier role now for himself.
Aqua's words only amplified her sobs, though; she pressed her face into the pillow so as not to wake up the entire neighborhood. "Stupid... You're so stupid... It was almost all for nothing," her voice muffled by the pillow.
Each sob of hers sent a stronger pang than the last through Aqua. "You are right... I should not have treated your efforts like that... It was disrespectful and dumb..." Aqua mumbled as he gently began to draw circles on the back of Akane's hand.
"Goodnight, Aqua."
-End of Arc 1: Prologue-