Chapter 11:

Jin walked into the room him and Kazuya and Yamapi shared with a deep sigh, and it wasn’t one of those silly I-need-attention sighs that he taught to Yuya, either. It was December, and the cold winds were finally getting the best of the school as Jin found more and more people missing classes these days, especially from the demons’ side. He honestly didn’t know why the school administration kept this nighttime-daytime thing going, but did they care? After all, they had killed his brother. It was about a month after Shuuji had left, and the incident between Yamapi and Yuya had long been forgotten, and if not forgotten, then at least pushed to the back of everyone’s minds, even if by force. Things were going well between Yamapi and Yuya, but Jin wished he could say the same for Yamapi and Ryo. He was uncertain if things would be the same between those two ever again.

But yes, he had now chosen to believe that the ones who had killed his brother were really the school administration, and possibly the student council as well. He was skeptical about the administration pulling it off all by themselves, so he thought that perhaps the student council had assured their peers and students that everything would be okay, but really working against them behind the scenes. However, if he were to confront any of his friends with anything bad to say about the student council, he’d no doubt be tackled to the floor or slapped in the face. This was one of the reasons why he thought the student council was a bit shady: everyone worshipped them. Even Yuya had fallen into their trap.

Kazuya looked over at Jin with wide eyes. He hadn’t seen Jin like this for a long time. He had seen Jin angry, hungry, tired, excited, happy, and hyper, but not in such deep thought, or stressed. He did what any good boyfriend would do. “Are you okay?” he asked quietly, walking over to Jin and sitting beside him, grasping the older boy’s hand in his own.

“Just in deep thought, I guess,” Jin said. Kazuya almost rolled his eyes. He could tell that from when Jin jumped as Kazuya sat down.

“What are you thinking about?” Kazuya probed more. He could get this answer out of Jin if he tried.

“Something,” Jin replied. Kazuya looked at him with a stern expression, and Jin broke down. “I was just looked through my old stuff in a box in the closet, and I found an old letter from Seiichi—”

It was then that Kazuya silenced him with a finger to his lips. “I don’t want you to think about Seiichi now,” he said gently. He sat on Jin’s lap and straddled his hips. “It’s almost Christmas, ne.” He then leaned in and gave Jin and peck on the lips.

“I guess you’re right,” Jin replied, and leaned in to kiss Kazuya again, but somehow he found that Kazuya wasn’t the only thing on his mind for once.

 ---

“Is everything okay, Kazuya?” Yuya said, leaning over the table and close to his twin brother. “With everything going on, we’ve hung out as friends, but we haven’t really gotten a chance to talk as brothers. Is there something bothering you?”

“Yuuuya!” Kazuya whined, leaning back on his chair and rubbing his face with his hands. “You’re being too mature! It makes me feel bad!”

Yuya giggled, making himself a bit ‘less mature’. “It’s okay, Kazuya! I’ll always be your baby brother, but you can tell me anything!”

Kazuya lifted his face up to steal a glance at Yuya, who was looking at him with bright, glittering eyes, and he found that he couldn’t keep anything from that face. “Jin’s been acting strange lately.”

“Strange?” Yuya asked, tilting his head cutely. Sometimes, Kazuya couldn’t believe that Yuya was his brother. How could he be so much cuter that Kazuya? The older twin looked Yuya up and down, staring a bit longer at the collar that was falling off Yuya’s shoulder a bit. “Like how strange?”

Kazuya shook his head. Maybe Jin’s strangeness was rubbing off on him. He couldn’t think like that. Yuya was his brother, and twin. “He’s thinking about something other than me,” and Kazuya only realized how selfish that sounded after he had said it. He covered his mouth with his hand, eyes widening. “I—I mean—”

But Yuya couldn’t stop himself from bursting out in laughter. “Kazuya, I thought I was supposed to be the self-centered one!” Kazuya turned red, and Yuya giggled even more. Cutely, of course. “But I certainly understand what you’re getting at—Jin normally gives you attention, right? Then maybe you should just talk to him.”

Kazuya shook his head, and his expression became serious. His eyebrows furrowed together. “I’ve tried. It doesn’t work.”

Yuya shook his head this time. “Nothing doesn’t work. Jin will open up to you, as long as you try,” he said gently, getting out of his seat and walking over to Kazuya. He patted his older brother on the shoulder, but that caused Kazuya to snap.

“It’s not him, it’s me!” Kazuya barked, throwing Yuya off of him and to the ground. Yuya looked up at Kazuya with wide eyes, shining in fear. Where was Ryo when he needed him? Or Shuuji? “Can’t you understand that?! I’m afraid! Afraid to ask him what’s going on!”

Yuya remained on the ground, supporting himself with his arms, still staring blankly at Kazuya, stunned.

Kazuya then fell to his knees in front of Yuya, collapsing completely. Yuya crawled over to his brother and held his older twin in his arms. Kazuya wrapped his arms weakly around Yuya’s shoulders. “I’m so sorry, Yuya. I didn’t know what I was doing. I don’t know what to do,” Kazuya sobbed. Yuya didn’t reply; he just continued to stroke Kazuya’s soft hair. “Whatever has been bothering him has something to do with Seiichi, and I don’t want that ruining our Christmas together. I don’t want to worry about our predicament in this school when Christmas is just around the corner.”

Now, Yuya had something to say. “I think,” Yuya began slowly, “that maybe you should listen to what he has to say, in case it’s something important. Even if it’s going to ruin Christmas, it’s inevitable, right? You’re just delaying it. Ruining one simple Christmas is better than dying.”

“I don’t know if I can just face the truth, though,” Kazuya said back. He had stopped racking with sobs and was now just shaking in Yuya’s arms. “I don’t know if I will be able to face what he has to say.”

Yuya wrapped his arms tighter around Kazuya and buried his face in his older brother’s hair. It smelled like vanilla. “Sometimes,” he said, “we have to act on our own, then.”

 ---

Kazuya limped weakly back to his room. It had been another lesson from Yuya, at yet another expected time. Yuya had always been a genius with so much insight that sometimes it was just scary. The reason Kazuya had always teased Yuya when he was little was because Kazuya had been partly jealous and partly afraid of that insight. But as he grew older, he grew to accept that insight, and even cherish it. Whenever he needed somewhere to go, he would go to Yuya, who always accepted him with open arms, whatever happened. Kazuya always accepted advice from Yuya because Yuya was a genius, but that proved to be a problem as well, because sometimes Kazuya didn’t quite get what Yuya was saying, such as now.

When Kazuya unlocked the door, he found neither Yamapi nor Jin in the room. He stepped in quietly, not used to the stiff silence and found himself turning on every light in the room, scared slightly. He had never been alone like this, and now wasn’t exactly a good time to start with everything going on. Kazuya found his way to the bed, but curiosity got the best of him, and soon he was rummaging through the closet.

In the corner, cast off like a small animal, was a letter on a piece of lined paper. Kazuya picked it up and found that there was no dust to blow off, making him think that someone had picked it up recently. His eyes widened when he saw who it was from: Akanishi Seiichi.

June 2, 2003

Dear Mom, Jin, and Reio,

            How is everything going at home? I’m doing fine, and I was really glad to hear from you guys after Springfest. Speaking of which, Springfest was a blast! Can you believe that Syusuke was the princess? Well, of course he was the princess! He’s just too gorgeous. This guy named Tezuka or whatever was the prince. He was handsome and all, but there’s something about him that I don’t like. Maybe I’m just too protective of my little Syusuke, huh?

Guess what? I got another perfect on my calculus test! It was actually really easy. I don’t know why our teachers give us such easy tests at the end of the year. Aren’t they supposed to be more difficult? But I guess it’s a good break from everything at the beginning of the year. Everything was so hard then, but after Springfest, everything was just so easy! Maybe I’m just smarter!

Our last days of school are coming up, and I can’t wait to see the final GPA of the two sides! I really want our side to win, but we’ve got tough competition. I’m sure Syusuke and I can handle it, though. We’re pretty smart, after all. We also have a couple friends who are super smart! You remember Yuushi and Gakuto and the gang, right? Well, I guess we’ll just have to wait until after the finals. Good thing there are only a couple left.

Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you guys something that was cool the other day! When I looked up at the bulletin board where the GPA is posted every day, I saw that the two sides’ GPAs were exactly the same! How cool is that? Maybe we should try to keep them the same. I want to win, but I also want to see what happens! It would be cool to outsmart the school administration. Maybe they’ll have an elimination test or something! Wouldn’t that be funny? I’m sure our side would win, though. Hope to see you guys soon! School’s almost out!

Love,

Seiichi

Kazuya found this letter to be quite ordinary. Seiichi didn’t use any strong or difficult vocabulary, and everything was pretty easy to understand. Seiichi didn’t seem like such a genius, but then again, neither Ryo nor Yuya nor did Yamapi really seem like geniuses, either. But the strange thing on the letter was that the word ‘elimination’ was underlined in dark red ink from a felt tip pen, and the letter had been written in dark blue ball point pen. This confused Kazuya. Why would it have been underlined, and why was it that word? And who underlined it?

“That letter was never mailed,” a voice behind Kazuya said quietly. Kazuya jumped and turned around to face Jin kneeling next to him. Both of the boys sat in comprehensive silence for a moment, and then it hit Kazuya. The letter fluttered to the ground. Kazuya was frozen, and his eyes stared at the wall in front of him.

“We’re going to die. We’re all going to die,” he whispered, shivering. “If anyone finds out about what we’re doing, we’re all going to die.”

The letter had never been mailed. That was what pieced it all together. The school administration collected the mail every day while it was handing the mail out. They had a special postman do it who wasn’t one of the students. The postman required that all the envelopes remain unsealed so that they wouldn’t stick to each other, and it was known that all the letters were sealed as they were mailed. But something wasn’t quiet right there. The postman must be part of the school administration. The postman must go through and read every letter. The school administration found out about Seiichi even mentioning the idea, and everything was over for the genius. They wanted to get back at him for even thinking about the most remote form of disrespecting the administration, and through some strange, sick twist of words, ‘elimination’ had backfired. The next day, both Seiichi and Syusuke were reported to be missing, and by afternoon, their bodies were found on the ground outside the school roof, one with a slashed throat and one with dislocated shoulders and many broken bones.

The school’s motto was, after all, ‘Full Moon Falls: The Brightest Yet Darkest Place on Earth.’

 ---

“What are they waiting for?” Jin said as a stiff, still silence filled the room. “If they want to get rid of us, why not just do it now?”

The silence after that sentence was simply deafening. The windows were closed and the slights were off. The overcast sky was just getting dark now, and Jin and Kazuya were sitting in their room, not bothering to get ready for school due to their new revelation.

“I’m tired. I can’t take this anymore,” Kazuya said, falling back on his back onto the hard floor, not feeling anything.

“We can’t give up,” Jin said, despite himself. “Yuya is always looking to the positive side, and he could always find a way. We have to be like Yuya now and try to find a way to fix this.”

Kazuya looked away. He always hated being compared to his cuter, smarter, prettier younger brother. He loved Yuya so much that it hurt realizing how different they were. Kazuya hated being jealous of his younger brother; he just wanted peace. Yuya wasn’t aware of this at all, but now wasn’t a time to be jealous. Now was the time to be like Yuya.

“They need proof,” Kazuya suddenly said after several long, drawn out minutes of silence. “They need proof that we’re the cause of it. They can’t convict us if they don’t have proof, and as of now, there’s nothing that could possibly prove that we’re not as innocent as anyone else in this school. This is why we’re not dead right now.”

The two nodded to themselves, lost in thought once again, but this time, thinking that maybe, just maybe, things would work out somehow.

All was up in the air once again, though, when they didn’t find Yuuta, Syusuke’s younger brother, in school that day. Yuuta hadn’t missed a day of school for the whole year. Yuuta was the only person in the school who wasn’t part of their group that knew of their secret.

 ---

During lunch break, Kazuya ran down the halls as fast as his legs could carry him, holding a piece of paper in his hand in a death grip, afraid that if he let go, all would be lost. Written on the piece of paper was Yuuta’s room number. Kazuya closed his eyes and ran as if his life was on the line, and as far as he knew, it could be.

Kazuya didn’t bother wearing a jacket; he knew it would only hinder him. He continued to run through the snowy pathways of the schools, connecting the dorms and the school buildings, hearing the snow crunch under his feet. He felt the icy snowflakes whip at his cheeks and he could swear they were being torn up, but even if he was bleeding to death, he had to find out where Yuuta was. The whole school was talking about Yuuta, Syusuke’s brother, the boy who hadn’t missed a single day of school, and whether or not he was missing.

Kazuya slammed open the door to his dorm building and flew up flights of stairs two at a time. His ice cold hands managed to still themselves and grasp the doorknob when he reached the fourth floor, and Kazuya ran down the hallway. Room 408 was on his right. He reached it in record time and, still catching his breath, he knocked on the door. When he heard no answer, he knocked harder and more insistently. Still no answer. Kazuya began pounding on the door.

The maid that came around the dorms every Monday morning stopped when she saw Kazuya. “Yuuta isn’t in there,” she said quietly. “If you’re wondering.”

Kazuya froze. When he blinked, she was gone, and Kazuya shook his head. Yuuta had to be in there. Kazuya knew Yuuta was in that room. Kazuya jiggled the doorknob and pounded on the door harder, slamming his fists into the doorknob.

“Yuuta,” he screamed. “Open the door!”

Finally, he heard a click coming from the other side of the door. Kazuya turned the doorknob and walked in. He saw Yuuta back away from the door. All the curtains and blinds were closed, and all the lights were off. “What do you want here?” Kazuya heard Yuuta say, though his voice was wavering.

“Why aren’t you at school today?” Kazuya demanded. “Everyone is worried about you. Especially Jin and myself.”

Yuuta shook his head. “I’m not going.”

“Ever?” Kazuya asked, though somewhat not surprised. “Why not?”

“It’s none of your business!” Yuuta snapped.

Kazuya stepped into the room.

“Get out!” Yuuta shouted, but Kazuya didn’t leave. Instead, he approached Yuuta in a couple of swift steps and put a hand on his shoulder. Yuuta did exactly what Kazuya had done a couple of days ago to Yuya. He threw Kazuya to the floor, but Kazuya caught himself before he was completely down and jumped back up. Kazuya raised his right hand and suddenly, Yuuta felt a stinging pain in his left cheek unlike any other he had ever felt. He gasped for breath. He was about to accuse Kazuya but found that he was speechless. Yuuta fell to his knees.

“Why aren’t you going to school?” Kazuya said quietly, kneeling down to Yuuta’s level.

“I—I’m scared.”

Kazuya felt something being forced into his hands. It was a sheet of lined paper. Kazuya stood up and flicked on the desk light, leaning over the desk to read the letter.

June 22, 2003

Dear Mom and Yuuta,

How is everything over there? I’m doing great, actually. Springfest was really fun! I got chosen as the princess, but I’m not really surprised. It was fun to act like, well, a princess the whole day. I bet Seiichi got really jealous. But I don’t know who he was jealous of—me or Tezuka, ne.

Saa…this will probably be a short letter. There’s really nothing going on lately. The finals are really easy and the teachers are being really nice. I can’t wait until the end of school ne. Though I’m kind of sad, because I’ll be leaving Seiichi. I could always visit him. We should go as a family! I heard Seiichi has two younger brothers, and one of them is Yuuta’s age ne.

Oh yeah, there is something going on. Well, it’s not big but as I looked at the bulletin board this morning, I saw that both teams’ GPAs were exactly the same! That’s the first time that’s ever happened before. The whole school was talking about it, and Seiichi and I were joking that perhaps we outsmarted the school administration this year. Wouldn’t that be weird? It would by funny, though. I wonder what happens when both teams end the year with the same GPA. Do they randomly select the winner? I guess it would be more plausible to have an elimination trivia game ne.

Love,

Syusuke

“Why is it underlined?” Yuuta asked quietly. “The word ‘elimination’.”

Kazuya shook his head. “Don’t worry about it now. Just whatever you do, don’t tell them what we’re doing right now. Don’t tell them about our plan, whatever you do, or else something might happen to you, too.”

Yuuta nodded his head slowly, understanding, but not saying anything in response. No words were needed at this point. Kazuya got up and turned to leave. His lunch break was almost over. As he was walking through the door, Yuuta turned and said, “This letter was never mailed.”

Kazuya stopped but didn’t turn back when he said, “I know.”

 ---

Kazuya fell back onto his bed after the school night was over. He just wanted to sleep the rest of his life away, and, he thought grimly, he just might. He rubbed his eyes and stared at the ceiling. He could still see the full moon shining through the window. Somehow, that full moon reminded him of his friends and himself. Even though they were not full most of the time and separated, they still shone strongly, though they were at their brightest when they were together. His mother had always told him when he was little that the pieces of the moon went off to join the stars when they moon wasn’t full. But when a month came around, the stars would always know to go back and join the moon so that it was full once again. Kazuya sat up and looked out the window once again, and indeed, there did seem to be fewer stars that night.

Another realization hit him, and he smiled grimly at the full moon. After all, the school was called ‘Full Moon Falls’. Every full moon would fall at some point, and there was nothing there to catch him. Would tonight be the night?

“If we’re careful,” Kazuya said absently to himself. He was so lost in thought that he hadn’t heard the click of the door open a couple minutes ago.

“If we’re careful, we don’t have to fall,” Jin replied from behind Kazuya. “They don’t have to know. The school administration will never know if we’re careful. If we’ve kept our GPA at an exact average for this much of the year, I think we can keep a simple secret from the administration.”

As the clouds passed the moon, Kazuya noticed that the clouds formed the perfect shape so that none of the moon was covered. He smiled truly for the first time in three or four days. “You’re right,” he said quietly to Jin, holding Jin’s arm in his own. “Miracles do happen after all. But they take time and work.”

“You just have to believe,” Jin said.

++++++++++++++++++++++++

a/n: This chapter is a bit strange, right? xD I liked it when I first wrote it, and now I don't like it at all. But yeah. Mainly Akame centered. So to get things straight, Seiichi and Syusuke were killed because they tried to disrespect the school administration, by thinking about what would happen if they grade point averages were to be the same. Not because they were on the losing team, like everyone thought. (So basically, Yuya and Kazuya and everyone just have to keep everything a secret). Oh, and sorry for the lack of appearance by anyone but Yuya, Kazuya, and Jin.

Next chapter: Everything might be revealed unless Yuya and Junno can race against the clock to retreive a letter containing all their secrets. (Yeah, you read right, Yuya and Junno). No pairings, really.