Unfortunate Incident
“You’re bleeding.” Mafuyu said softly, still with the same sort of stiffness as normal.
“Huh?” Kanade stuttered, oddly loud and echoing in the unchanging void of Mafuyu's feelings that is the empty SEKAI.
Oh no. She'd done it now. She wasn’t supposed to let this secret slip, but it had done the work for her.
“Your Hand.” Mafuyu said, her words dripping with a surprising slight worry as she softly lifted Kanade’s arm, gently moving her hand down to Kanade's wrist.
As soon as kanade had one quick look at her hand, she hastily pulled out her phone and paused ‘Composing the future’, as if to almost run from mafuyu, which she’d never done before.
“Kana- '' mafuyu started, but she wasn’t quick enough to catch the long, silver-haired girl. So, she pulled out her phone and decided to head back to instantly message her on Nightcord, to try and pry an answer from her.
Direct messages: @K
Yuki: <Kanade, what was that all about?> 12:23
K: <it was nothing, i think you were just seeing things. I just had a new idea for another melody, is all.> 12:23
Kanade didn’t like lying to mafuyu, but it was the only way she could get out of a situation like this.
Yuki: <Are you sure? Your face looked quite distraught to me.> 12:24
K: <yes i am, as i said before you were just seeing things probably. No need to worry> 12:24
So she said, but something that was like worry flowed through mafuyu’s chest and making it tighten, but she didn’t recognize the feeling enough to realise.
Yuki: <alright then, i hope you’re not lying> 12:25
K: <trust me, i promise i’m not> 12:25
When mafuyu saw Kanade’s status icon turn to a shade of grey, she knew something was up. She just knew it. But she couldn’t put her finger on it, no matter how hard she tried, she almost wanted to go over to kanade’s house just to know what was up. But she couldn’t, it was too close to 25:00.
When mafuyu looked back at her screen, she saw a new notification from niigo’s group chat.
K: <sorry, won’t be participating today, i’ve been a bit busy.> 24:55
She also saw supportive messages from the two other friends in her circle, Mizuki and Ena.
Amia: <that’s fine K! See you when you get back~> 24:56
Enanan: <all good, see you soon, K> 24:56
Mafuyu then decided to write a reply of her own.
Yuki: <don’t worry about it K, we’ll wait for you whenever you decide to come back> 24:57
K: <thank you, all of you> 24:58
As mafuyu watched closely like a cat stalking its prey, her status icon once again returned to grey.
Then the clock ticked over to 25:00, and Mizuki, Mafuyu and Ena hopped on the group call to discuss where they got up to with work.
Of course, with Kanade gone, there was definitely more bickering from Mizuki and Ena today without her there to stop the two. But then again, Mizuki and Ena both noticed mafuyu being even more quiet than normal and not jumping in to stop them just like kanade does, which was slightly unnerving. Mizuki decided to speak up,
<hey Yuki, you doing okay? You seem even more quiet than normal today~> Mizuki said in their normal, singsong teasing tone but with more worry concealed inside their words.
<it’s alright, sorry for worrying you.> Mafuyu said in her same monotonous tone as always.
<c’mon, don’t be like that. We can clearly tell something’s up,> Ena protested.
<fine. Well, the truth is... i’m worried about Kanade.> Mafuyu confessed.
<hm? I don’t see what you’re getting on about, K’s been fine the last couple of days to me.?> Mizuki inquired, clearly confused.
<yeah, what do you mean Yuki?> Ena added on, the same amount of confusion flooding her voice.
<well…> Mafuyu started. <when i was with her in SEKAI, i saw that her hand was bleeding or had some blood on her fingertips, but she left before i could get any questions in.>
Mizuki and Ena were both silent, only very slight whispers of their breath could be heard through their microphones.
<i.. Is that so.?> Mizuki said softly after a couple of minutes, their voice sombre.
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