Chapter 29
"Mafuyu… why do you have to hurt me this way..?"
Mafuyu took a step back, grasping onto her desk, with her empty fish tank's dim light shining behind her as she struggled to keep a smile on her face.
"Mother…?"
Her mother opened Nightcord on Mafuyu's laptop.
"You sent these messages during school hours, Mafuyu. Have you been prioritising these useless things over what's truly important?"
She pulled Mafuyu into a hug, patting her back softly while gripping her shoulder.
"Mom…"
"Mafuyu… you said you'd give up on music… yet here we are…"
She sighed.
Mafuyu was almost choking as light left her eyes.
"What do these people's families think of this puny project of yours? I've told you multiple times to choose good, smart friends. That Kanade girl was a bad influence too…"
She began… dragging Mafuyu around the small bedroom like some sort of waltz, Kanade's old song that all Nightcord members had heard all those years ago playing in the background as her mother hummed along to it.
Mafuyu couldn't take it anymore.
That night she learned how deadly a simple pencil could be.
Her mother hissed in pain, holding her chest as she bled out.
"Is this really… who I raised, Mafuyu? This… ungrateful, lying child?"
Mafuyu was quietly sobbing.
Her mother grabbed her trembling hand, bloodying them more.
"I loved you, Mafuyu… and this is how that's repaid…"
Mafuyu's eyes shot open.
There was no blood, her mother wasn't there.
She was alone in her cell, where a peaceful silence had settled.
But… she wasn't quite alone. She noticed that as soon as a shade of orange caught her eye.
"Ena's brother…"
He frowned, scribbling something on a small notepad.
"Stop calling me that."
Mafuyu nodded hesitantly, before laughing nervously.
"So… what brings you here…?"
He passed her a plate of pancakes stacked neatly like a tower.
She was confused.
"...While I do appreciate the gesture… may I ask why you're doing this?"
He started writing again before showing it to her.
"Someone did this for me once after a bad nightmare."
She accepted them, they didn't taste like anything. It was like chewing on nothing.
She did see the other side of the page he was using to write at that moment.
It had scribbles just like any other page probably did but… those weren't words.
Those were full on drawings.
Of Ena, Mochizuki, Shiraishi, Mizuki, and of other people she didn't bother to try and recognize.
They kinda reminded her of Ena's drawings. Wacker, of course, but the resemblance was there.
He started writing again, glancing at her before that.
"What are you looking at?"
The sudden question startled her a bit, so she dodged it.
"...Did you draw those?"
He hesitated before nodding.
"They're not even close to being as good as Ena's but… it's certainly a way to…"
The rest of that was scratched out to the point where it was unreadable.
She sighed at the response, leaning on the wall behind her as he breathed heavily as always.
"I see…"
"An?"
That voice… No, it couldn't be…"
"An!"
"An!"
An had zoned out, it seemed that happened more and more every time.
"Hah… I'm going crazy here…"
She glanced at her bandaged hands, then at her cell's broken door.
The blood was still there.
She sighed, she lost it that day and she knew it. Almost killing Hanasato…
The more she thought about it, the more she wanted to throw up.
"Hi, An…"
She looked up, startled.
She hadn't heard that voice in ages.
"Haruka…?"
She blinked multiple times but she didn't go away.
"You're… are you really here…?"
She reached for her arm, her hand passing straight through it.
"I don't know how this happened… Where are we, An?"
An chuckled.
"I am here… You died, Haruka…"
Haruka kneeled down in front of her.
"I really did, didn't I…"
An stayed quiet for a moment, looking at her dead friend.
She was wearing what An assumed to be the clothes she died with.
"Well, at least you did with a whole lot of style…"
Haruka laughed softly.
"Glad you think so… Shizuku helped me pick this outfit… Oh, you know who Shizuku is, right? Hinomori Shizuku?"
An chuckled.
"Yeah, I know Hinomori! She's here too! It's wild that she helped you pick that, it looks so cool too!"
Haruka's eyes widened.
"Wait, she is?! But this place looks like a prison! How would Shizuku of all people be in a place like this?!"
"Shiraishi?"
Shizuku whispered to herself, merely passing by An's cell.
She'd heard the latter talk to herself, but stopped in her tracks at the mention of her name.
But 'to help pick something out'... That sounded like what she helped Haruka with before her death…
But that couldn't be, right..? Haruka was dead, everyone knew that. Idol fans talked about that for months.
But Shiraishi couldn't have possibly known who picked the costume for what would unknowingly be Haruka's last performance. No one knew that.
So how did An know?