KS A Painter's tools

	“Wake up.”

	The voice slowly spreads through Natsume’s mind, the words not really registering. Slowly, like sludge, her brain comes back into focus, and feeling returns to the girl.

	“Wake up.”

	Her eyes still closed, Natsume feels her arms hang above her, her feet sway above the ground.

	Groggily, as if waking from a deep sleep, she slowly opens her eyes.

	A bright light shines into her face, making her squint. Her glasses must have fallen off somewhere, and she finds herself scanning for them around the room for them before she realizes what she is doing. She takes in the room as well as she can, her bi-colored eyes searching for any sort of familiarity.

	The concrete floor is just one or two feet beneath her, her legs swaying above it. A dark stain seems to be etched into the room, and Natsume feels a sort of darkness from the stain. Her clothing looks dirty and scuffed, her uniform appearing wrinkled.

	She looks up and ahead, realizing that there’s more than one light shining on her, instead multiple from different angles shine brightly towards her face.

	She lifts her eyes to where her hands are, and sees the strips of cloth binding them together. She closes her red eye, squinting against the light in an attempt to see through it.

	“Hold it, right there.” Natsume freezes, and a sense of fear begins to spread throughout her. “Perfect. A perfect pose, just don’t move.” The voice is warning, but also friendly, almost jovial, contrasting with the cold dark feeling of the room.

	Natsume stares upwards at her binds as she slightly sways. Her arms are tied together around what seems to be some sort of hook. The ceiling, well-lit from the lighting ahead of her, has multiple rafters hanging from above.

	Natsume, unable to resist, musters her courage and calls out to the room. “W-who’s there?” Her voice cracks, betraying her fear.

	“I SAID DON’T MOVE!” The voice roars back, the jovial tone gone and replaced with a harsh shout. Natsume feels her body go stiff, but the jerking of the motion sense her swaying slightly.

	“Stop it.” The voice commands. The chain above Natsume tinkers as her body sways backwards and forwards on the hook.

	“Stop. It.” The voice says, more firmly.

	“I-I can’t.” Natsume says slowly, quietly, her eyes still locked upwards towards the ceiling.

	The sound of wood scrapes against the ground, and Natsume looks forward just in time to see a wooden stool sail past the lights and striking her directly in the face. She screams in pain, and the chain clatters as she sways far back, and then forwards again. Natsume, tears dripping down her face, shouts into the room.

	“WHY!?” She sobs. “WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS!?”

	Silence answers her. Her face throbs in agony, the only sound in the room is her blood rushing through her veins and the tinkering as she sways backwards and forwards. As she moves forwards, closer to and above the light, she can see the outline of a person in the shadow of the room, un-moving.

	“Please.” She whimpers. “Please just let me go. I’ll- I’ll do whatever you want. Please.”

	Natsume swings backwards, then forwards. As she does, she sees that the shadow has moved. It stands a bit further away, towards the back of the room. It removes something from its head, and lets out a sigh, hunched over.

	“How can you do anything I want if you cannot hold a simple pose?”

	“N-no no, please, it wasn’t my.” Natsume says, swinging back. She moves forward again, and she sees the shadow advancing towards the line of lights.

	“No no no please no” the shadow crosses the line of light, showing the form of a boy in a green Yamaku uniform. His features are blurry, but Natsume can clearly make out the knife he carries in his raised hand. “NONONO YOU CAN-”

	Natsume swings forward, her body impaling itself on the knife. The boy holds forward. Searing pain slices into Natsume’s abdomen, and she gasps. For a moment, it’s in disbelief, but quickly she begins to howl as she swings backwards, her eyes screwed shut in pain.

	She picks her legs up, swinging them out towards the boy who has turned to the side and picks up a tarp that she hadn’t noticed.

	“YOU BASTARD! HELP! HELP! SOMEBO-” Natsume, who threw her head back to call out, gasps again as she feels the sting of the blade enter her chest. Pain, unbearable pain, causes Natsume to scrunch her body, trying to free herself. She sways on the hook, attempting another scream, but she just gasps for air. The hot sticky liquid of blood flows out of her, and Natsume can feel herself fading as her body panics and attempts to shut down on itself.

	The adrenaline keeps her functioning though, and she reaches out to kick her attacker, but her kick is slow and weak. The attacker bends over, spreading out the tarp beneath her, and places things on them. One by one, the boy places glass jars beneath Natsume. Her blood, HER blood, flows out of her stomach and her chest, ebbing out into the bottles.

	“H-hhhh” Natsume hisses, trying to get out the words, but they cannot form.

	Slowly she realizes that she hasn’t even tried to kick him as he did, her mind settling back into the groggy state. The pain slowly faded as Natsume found herself being taken in, and a peaceful aura overcame the girl as her soul faded from her body.
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	‘Loud noises. I hate loud noises.’ Thinks Rin Tezuka as a streamer is popped right next to her ear. She doesn’t show the slightest bit of reaction to it, and quickly forgets she even had the thought as it’s overshadowed by the face of the smiling boy, hand in his jacket pocket and grinning tiltedly, in front of her as the others shout welcome to him.

	Hisao Nakai was a new student to Yamaku, and he and Rin had quickly bonded. The boy had stayed out with her all day mixing and helping her paint her mural, and Rin found herself thinking about that moment far more than she felt she should. Even now, she was comparing how set his jaw was when he was working as opposed to when he was smiling, like now.

	‘I like him smiling better. But only a little. He’s sharp, his bone structure must…’

	The mind of Rin Tezuka continues on, firing off ideas on Hisao’s bones and their length and width as the boy is clasped on the back by the art teacher as the other students disperse about the room to take in the celebration.

	“Hahaha, welcome welcome Hisao, my boy. You’re just what this club needed, a bit of life to it!” Booms Professor Nomiya, the art teacher that was in charge of the club.

	“Thank you, sir.” Hisao replies, inclining his head earnestly.

	“Now now now, none of that! Hahaha, this is a celebration, guest of honor, there’s no need to be formal. Here, have a drink.” Nomiya hands Hisao a plastic cup which is filled with a odd smelling liquid. Hisao, no wanting to be rude, drinks from the cup. He gags immediately, which Nomiya laughs and claps him on the back.

	“Welcome to manhood, my boy!” Nomiya exclaims. “You know, you’re lucky that your new teacher is so cool to bring this stuff in.” he says, winking.

	Hisao doubts the extent of that luck, although he does it silently instead of to the man himself. The fruity taste of the sake, is in stark contrast to its foul taste, although Hisao finds himself taking another pull of the drink to satisfy Nomiya.

	“So, uh, Nomiya.”

	“Better!” Nomiya says warmly.

	“What, uh, what sort of projects will we be working on over the next few weeks?”

	Nomiya rubs his hands together, smiling widely. “A man of passion, eh? I love that! We’ll be creating art, my boy, artwork that will be remembered for generations!”

	“Generations? I hope to just get my art on my parents’ fridge.” Hisao jokes, sending Nomiya into a fit of laughter.

	Just then, Rin walks up to the pair. “I’m stealing you.” She says to Hisao, and begins walking away before he can ask what she meant.
Nomiya clasps him on the back and nods after her, “I’m sure you two will get up to things that this school couldn’t even imagine.” He scoops up a drink himself and walks away, leaving Hisao to follow after Rin as she walked to a corner of the room, away from the rest of the part.

	He follows her at a measured pace, looking around the room. ‘There aren’t many people here, just about ten people in total, and a few groups split off.’ Hisao starts, his inner monologue running. ‘I recognize one or two of the other students, but everyone here is really new to me. I guess everyone in Yamaku is new to me.’ He looks ahead and sees Rin staring at him curiously, her green eyes seemingly able to only focus on him. In a moment of silliness, Hisao sticks his tongue out at her as she approaches. Rin’s bewildered expression makes him laugh.

	“Why did you do that?” she asks, her head tilted to the left, her hair falling lopsided.

	“Because.” Hisao said, winking. “Why did you want me to come over here?”

	“Because.” Rin replies, slightly smiling. “The light from the window made your features pop out when you were walking, like artwork, and then you stuck out your tongue.” Rin says, recounting the past few moments.

	“Heh, trust me, I am not a work of art.” Hisao says. Then he sticks his tongue out at Rin again, the side of his face scrunched.

	“Besides, now I just look like that guy on your mural.” He says, and laughs at his own joke.

	Rin shakes her head. “No, that was Takashi. Or, the real Takashi. Everyone seemed to agree, because they kept saying so during the festival.”

	“Takashi?” Hisao asks. He looks over his shoulder at the boy with the bandaged ear, who is smiling and talking with a group of girls.

	‘That was his name’ Hisao thinks, remembering the boy from his class. ‘Takashi Maeda. He sits near me in Mutou’s class, our desks only being a few apart. He wasn’t an overall interesting person, but we’ve never really interacted.’

	“What do you mean ‘the real Takashi’?” He asks her.

	Rin looks at him curiously, and then shrugs. “Oh, right. You’re new to this. Well, that guy over there is the fake Takashi. I drew the real one.”

	Rin’s words don’t make much sense to Hisao, who tries to shrug it off as just Rin being Rin, although the words do stick. “So, did you want to talk about something private?”

	“He’s staring at you.”

	The words come out of her mouth as if they had no meaning, no pretense, but Hisao feels his spine straighten and his shoulders catch as an icy chill runs down his back. Rin, staring right at him, shakes her head.

	“No, not like that, if you look then he’ll know for sure.”

	Hisao catches himself from spinning around and instead looks past Rin at the window, trying to see a sort of reflection.

	“Takashi is looking at me? How do you know he’s not looking at you?”

	Rin waves her arms and shoulders up in a shrugging manner. “Just can tell. There’s no way he heard you, his ear’s kind of bad.”

	“Oh thanks, I’d have never guessed.” Hisao says. The windows show the outside clearly, and Hisao can only make out his own reflection in the bright light.

	“Why do you think he’s staring at me? Is he still?”

	“Maybe he’d like to paint you, like me. But I already stole you.” Rin says, a small smile on her lips.

	“You’d paint me?” Hisao asks.

	“Of course, your true you. I’d love to paint you as you. Come on.” Rin says, walking past Hisao. “Let me show you the student gallery.”

	Hisao turned, following her, and glanced over towards the group that Takashi had been a part of. Sure enough, the boy was giving him a sort of glare as the girls around him laughed and spoke with one another. His look unnerved Hisao, although the other boy stared right back. He’d dealt with bullies in school before, and Takashi seemed like he’d fit right in with the analytical look he was giving Hisao, as if sizing him up like a Lion did a Gazelle, but Hisao wasn’t going to just roll over.

	‘Maybe he has a crush on Rin. Well too bad.’ Hisao caught up to Rin and placed a hand on her shoulder. She looked over at him, questioningly, but they just kept walking.

	They exited the room and wandered next door to the students’ picture gallery. Hisao had seen the gallery’s doors before, but had never been in there. Rin stopped and looked at him, waiting for him to push open the doors. He stepped up and pushed on the double doors, which moved easily under his touch.

	The first thing that hit him was the stench. The heavy smell of fresh paint was overwhelming, and Hisao felt himself cough and place his hand over his nose as the scent assaulted him.

	“I smell it too.” Rin said, walking in unabashed. “I don’t know why they’ve let him hang them here, it makes the whole room smell wrong.”

	“Wrong?” Hisao parroted. He followed her into the room, and began looking around at the separate sections.

	“Yes.” Rin said simply.

	“Well, it is an art gallery.” Hisao said. He was looking closely at a set of paintings that seemed to be from the blonde haired girl in the club. Hisao couldn’t remember her name, but in the center of the section was a self-portrait of her, apparently sleeping and surrounded by white flowers. She gripped her cane in her hands, on the center of her chest, lying flat against her small and slender form as she lay with a simple white dress. Hisao looked a bit closer, and saw the title of the image. “My future: by Saki Enomoto.”

	“I can’t image what my funeral will be like. I hope there’s more colors than just white.” Rin says, standing beside him.
Hisao found himself quickly walking away from the image. He wasn’t exactly interested in Saki’s art anymore. Rin followed after him, walking at a much more lackadaisical pace.

	As they went along, the pictures seemed to be much more of the usual sort. There were a few landscape pictures, including one of the Tokyo skyline that Hisao admired greatly, and a few naturalistic pictures that he thought were beautiful as well. Another set of workings was, what Hisao suspected, were some form of abstract art, until Rin told him that they had been done by a blind student. They walked along, Hisao finding himself much more interested in the artwork than he’d normally been about the subject, before they came upon a rather unique set of images.

	The images were all some sort of variation of red, with a bit of orange. They reminded Hisao of rust, and the images seemed the blurred a bit because of it. Out of the group of images, though, one was explicitly clear.

	The central image was a boy sitting in a chair, and he looked as if he was painting. The picture, honestly, was really well done. Out of the group, it was by far the most detailed, the most measured in pacing, and Hisao really felt some sort of calling from it that spoke that the artist took their time, much like Rin had with her mural. The boy was obviously Takashi, and he must have pictured himself working on another image. His beret was skewed upon his head, dirty hair poking out from beneath it, and Hisao could even see the individual bandages that overhung on his ear. His face was one of concentration as he worked on his sketchpad, and Hisao could really tell the effort the image must have taken so as to not have drips of paint stain it. The picture was labeled “A painter’s tools.”
The other pictures, however, were almost garbage in comparison. There was an image of what Hisao thought was a boy, who seemed to be flipped upside down doing a hand stand. Another image was of something that Hisao couldn’t even make out, maybe some sort of animal, that had angry red swatches going back and forth over it, as if Takashi had crossed it out. The final image was, at least, a little clearer, showing a girl who seemed to be holding her hands above her head in prayer. From behind her extended Angelic wings, and she seemed to be ascending to heaven, although there were the smutches and blotches that were unlike his central image, and Hisao couldn’t make out any sort of facial details. The picture was titled “An Angel returns to Heaven.”

	“That’s why I drew his true self.” Rin said, matter-of-factly, as if the obvious had just been made to Hisao.

	“I’m not sure I follow.” Hisao said, measuredly.

	“That’s blood, Hisao.” Rin said. She said it so simply, so easily, but the implications of the words astounded him. Hisao felt himself questioning it, but a part of him knew it must be true as he involuntarily stepped back from the section.

	“Jesus, really?” Hisao said. He turned and looked from Rin back towards the paintings, and the rusted color seemed to make more sense.

	“Yup, he told Nomiya that he’s drawn them all in his own blood.” The way she said it, so simple, so off, was in stark contrast to what Hisao considered a very serious situation.

	“He told Nomiya that? That’s quite a lot of blood…” Hisao said. He felt the suspicion creep into his own voice.

	“Yup, that first one, and the one of the dog are. The others, I don’t think. Would you like me to ask? He doesn’t seem to like you.”

	‘How can she be so casual,’ Hisao thinks to himself. ‘She’s talking about using blood to paint images of people, blood that might not even be his. What the hell kind of guy does this?’

	“So whos blood is it…” Hisao said, trying to keep his tone even.

	“Well that one is animal blood,” Rin said, doing a shrug towards the hand standing picture. “And that one, I don’t know. It might be his blood, but it looks different. Maybe it’s Angel blood? He might only be able to draw it well if he uses the blood of the subject.”

	“A-angel blood? Why haven’t you told Professor Nomiya about this?”

	“Cause Nomiya loves it. That picture,” she said, shrugging towards the center one, “is the best in the gallery. You can feel the emotion, can’t you? The strokes are so well placed, the image painted to perfection, it’s really a good picture. Nomiya keeps telling him how great it is. He can’t recreate it though, but he seems to get better at trying. As I said, maybe it’s the blood.”

	Rin starts walking along, as if she hadn’t just told him that a boy was using people’s blood to make pictures of him and she wanted to show him more pretty pictures. “Hey, now wait a second. Rin!” He hurried after her. “So, you think he’s using people’s blood to paint them? Then what happens to the people?”

	*SLAM*

	Hisao whirls around, and sees the double doors swinging back and forth on their hinges. There’s no sign of a person, but the swinging doors tell that somebody must have been in the room with them, or at least was standing in the threshold.

	“Hello?” Hisao called.

	“Huh, he must have better hearing than I thought. Maybe his ear was burning.” Rin said. She looked towards the artwork on the wall, shrugging. “Oh well. I think he’s kind of weird. Not weird like you weird, I like the you weird. Weird like weird weird.” Rin said. She ambles off along the row as Hisao keeps looking towards the doors as they slowly halt their pendulum swinging, his neck prickling with an icy cold.

	“This is mine, if you want to look. Or maybe, hey, do you want to paint that door? You’re looking at it like I looked at you that first time we met.”

	Rin’s questions snaps Hisao out of his thought process as he realized she was talking to him. He slowly walked over, his head still turning to look over his shoulder. “No, it’s just, don’t you feel a little creeped out that- Hey, what do you mean like you looked at me?” Hisao’s neck twists forward, looking directly on at Rin, who wears a little smile on her face.

	“Like I looked at you from how I wanted to paint you. You’re very paintable, you know, but I wanted to ask first, because it’d be rude not to. I nearly painted a blind girl before without asking, but I stopped because I was afraid she’d hear the brush on the paper. She was busy drinking tea, but…” Rin shrugs again, although Hisao wasn’t paying much attention to what she had said beyond that she had wanted to paint him since the first time they’d met.

	“Why do you think I’m paintable?” He asked her.

	Rin hummed, then stepped up closer to Hisao. She got so close to him that he could feel the front of her shirt against his chest as she leaned into him, her eyes looking into his. “You’re very green. Fresh, like a flower that is blooming in spring. I’d like to try and put that into an image.”

	Hisao imagined a picture of a flower with his face on it, and it honestly made him laugh a little. “So if I’m a flower in spring, what does that make you?” Hisao asked, with a smile.

	Rin tilts her head to the side, seemingly curious. She scrunches her face up in thought. “I guess that I’d be a mannequin. I feel incomplete, and a lot of people don’t understand me, so I have to pretend sometimes, or I used to before just letting me be me. I love painting though, and mannequins can’t paint.”

	“Neither can flowers.” Hisao said, and Rin nods her head sagely.

	“It fits then.” She said, and turned towards the wall.

	Hisao turned then as well and what followed was a truly breathtaking scene. The main image of artwork was court yard of the campus. The image itself was a mass of people and things, many of them indescribable in the crowd, but here and there he could see some familiar faces. A hint of blonde hair on a tall woman was off in the back right of the crowded picture, with a blur of purple dashing towards her. Or was it away? Then, in the foreground, a section that the only descriptor he can come with is loud, a pink aura surrounds a drill haired girl, practically obscuring the one standing next to her as other students look on in apparent horror. Hisao laughs as he observes the student council, and Rin’s take on them. Then, in the very center and front of the image, Emi herself is clearly depicted. She’s wearing her running outfit, as opposed to everyone else’s school uniforms, and is bent over in a sprinting position, ready to take off towards the perspective, which Hisao thinks must be Rin herself. The size and aspect of the picture is giant, and Hisao looks through the crowd observing multiple others that he recognizes but some he just can’t put a name to.

	Hisao looks beneath the image to see the title. “My friends: by Rin Tezuka.”

	Hisao can’t help but smile at it, leave it to Rin to make her central image, which many people chose to make a self-portrait, be about everyone but herself.

	“It’s out of date, now.” Rin says, looking at her own work. “Nomiya won’t let me add to it though, since it’s so late in the year, he says.”

	Hisao looks at the other paintings then. An image of the art room, with afternoon light peering in, looks more like a photograph than an image. “Don’t look at that one. We had to do a landscape picture of nature, but it’s not very naturey, even if it’s natural.”

	Hisao nods his head, not entirely understanding, but he’s learning more and more that sometimes he just doesn’t have to. “Even if it’s not right, it’s still beautiful.” Hisao tells Rin. He looks over to see her staring back at him, head cocked again.

	“You’re interesting. I can’t figure you out.” Rin says to him.

	Hisao is a bit taken aback by the sudden shift. “I- what?” He asks.

	“I can’t figure you out. That’s interesting to me.” Rin says simply.

	“What does that mean?” Hisao asks, thinking to himself that he is the one who should be saying that to her.

	Rin shrugs, then walks up closer to him. Hisao takes a step back, put off by her odd statement, but she closes the gap and places her head against his chest, before pulling back, a small smile on her lips.

	“I like that about you.” She says.
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	Hisao walked into his room, a bit perplexed. The evening had gone… Well, not exactly as he had planned. Nomiya was certainly a strange sort of teacher, and that boy watching him itched the back of his mind, but his main focus was Rin.

	Just what had she meant when she said she liked that about him? Did she mean she liked him? Or was it just that she… liked that? Or maybe it was her…

	“Ugh.” Hisao groans out loud, placing his face into his hands. It’s all so confusing, so hard to understand, and it’s just… Is it even worth the effort?

	He looks over to his desk and groans. It’s stacked with school books and papers, papers that he’d promised himself he’d finish before classes tomorrow. Hisao rolls his eyes, exasperated at his own forgetfulness. It’s going to be a long night.

	He walks over to his bedside and unscrews the first bottle of pills, about to begin his nightly routine. He pops the pills into his hand… and freezes the moment the small pills make contact. Quickly, Hisao makes his way over to his desk and flicks on the lamp. The light illuminates the room, and Hisao bends down and examines the bottle as well as the pills. They were wrong. These weren’t his pills. He read the bottle to double check, he started with this same bottle every night because it contained the largest and most uncomfortable pills to swallow, yet in his palm were slight and skinny pills that only resembled the color of his heart medication. Somebody had switche-

	A noise of a sliding door opening pierces the silence. Panic fills Hisao as he turns just in time to see a long object flashing towards him, the glint of iron flashing off it.

	A momentary flash of pain in his cranium is all he feels as he falls to the ground, and darkness takes him.
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	Claustrophobia. The sense is the first thing that returns to Hisao, the sense of fear of being tightly held. Before he even opens his eyes, the young man begins to squirm. The next is the pain that spikes in his head, and Hisao lets out a groan.

	“I wouldn’t move so much. You’re upsetting the orchestra.”

	Bright light shines towards him from his left as he opens his eyes. He has to look away from them, turning towards the right and the darkness. He can see that he’s tied to the bed, ropes tightly holding him down and restraining him are tightly pulled across his body.

	“Look back over here.” The voice says. Slowly, Hisao turns back towards the brightness. His eyes adjusting to the brightness. He quickly realizes that there’s multiple sources, lamps like the used at construction sites.

	“Yes. That’s perfect.” Says the voice of a boy. Hisao doesn’t respond, his mind working slowly and trying to piece the situation together. There must be a reason, a purpose, to this madness.

	“Perfect.” Whispered the voice. Hisao could hear what sounded like scratching, and realized he could see the shape of a person, just behind and next to one of the lamps. “You can’t hear it, but try not to move. The music… the woodwinds play so beautifully. Just a bit more, and then we’ll be done.” Says the voice.

	Hisao says nothing, just stares ahead at the person. He’s extremely aware of his heartbeat, but is able to keep it slow. ‘No problem,’ he thinks to himself. ‘No problem, I just need to not move. Okay. Okay. I can do this.’

	Hisao stays like that, forcing himself to stare ahead. Time passes. Hisao can’t tell how much. Ten minutes? Twenty? He lays still, pressed tightly to the bed. ‘Think through this.’ He tells himself. ‘Someone broke into my room. Someone replaced my medication with some sort of pills. After I noticed, they came out and hit me. They knocked me out, and tied me to my bed. Okay. Who could it be though? It has to be someone who knows me. It’s a boy. That voice isn’t Kenji’s.’

	The thought struck Hisao like a freight train. Instantly, he knew who it was.

	“Takashi.” He spoke out loud.

	The scribbling noise stopped, halted, and an extremely loud silence filled the room. Hisao could feel the mounting tension. Several moments passed before any sound was heard, and suddenly the shady form of the boy was easily visible next to the light.

	“How did you know?”

	“Who else would it be?” Hisao said, rolling his eyes. Something about the revelation made him feel brave inside, that he’d been right. Words were his only weapon here, and he’d make sure to at least try and use them. “I’ve talked with all of ten people at this school, and you’re the only one that seems to have a problem with me. Is this about Tezuka?”

	Takashi visibly flinched at the mention of the name. “DO NOT TALK ABOUT HER!” His fist flew out, striking the construction lamp, which pivoted and pointed out the window. “All I ever hear from that bastard old man is ‘Tezuka this’ and ‘Rin that,’ like she’s his pride and joy or something! I have the best pictures, I’ve made the best paintings, and just because she’s some autistic weirdo that paints freaks like her stupid mural, Nomiya gives her all this special treatment!” As Takashi spoke, he flailed his hands in exasperation. As they passed by the light, Hisao could see angry red scars where the boy must have bleed himself.

	Takashi breathed heavily, his form much more obvious now without the blaring light next to him. He wore his beret on his head, though it was tilted to the point of falling off. In the other, he held a sketchpad. Behind him was an easel that was set up, now shown by the light, as well as several glass jars. Some were empty, others were filled with an almost black liquid.

	“Her time is up, though.” Takashi said, a wild grin flashing onto his face. “I’ve finally figured it out.” He quickly walked up to Hisao, stepping over him. “The music only plays right if it’s their blood, the paint will flow, and Nomiya will value me again.”

	‘Keep him talking!’ Hisao shouted in his mind.

	“Is that your latest painting? Where did you get that blood?” His voice came out panicked, but he knew he had to say something.

	Anger crossed Takashi’s face, his hand flew out and smacked Hisao in the face. Hisao’s nose stung from the impact. “It’s her fault, she did it, she messed up the music. Not you, though. The music has done it’s part,” he said, holding up the sketchpad. On it, Hisao could see himself, staring in fear at Takashi’s position. Over him stood a black skeletal man, with a scythe in hand. A reaper. The bottom read ‘At Rest.’ “All I need,” Takashi said, lowering it, “is to paint it.

	Out of his sleeve, Takashi drew a long steel knife. He slashed at one of the central bindings holding Hisao, and cut the fabric just above his arm, exposing the bare arm. Hisao squirmed, feeling the ropes loosen, but he knew it’d be too late to stop him.

	“One little cut, that’s all I need. One vein, and you’ll give all that I need.”

	*Boom Boom Boom*

	Takashi and Hisao both froze. Takashi stood, knife inches from Hisao’s arm, staring dead ahead. Hisao also remained still.

	*Boom Boom Boom*

	The door shook on its hinges as the blows were received on it. Takashi put the knife to Hisao’s lips. “Shhhhh.” He said, quietly. He backed off of the other boy, flicking off the lights as he slid the knife back into his jacket. In the starlight, Hisao watched as he took of his hat and placed it by the foot of the bed, atop of what Hisao just noticed was his cane. The cane seemed to glint in the dim room, and Hisao knew that that was the item he must have been struck with. Takashi ruffled his hair as he opened the door.

	“Ugh, hello?” he said, sleepily.

	“Hello.” Hisao heard from the other side of the door, a melancholy voice that he recognized instantly as Rin. Slowly, silently, Hisao loosened the other bindings, using the sliced fabric to gain access to the ropes. He thanked God for the new bed, and the silent bed springs that it had as he maneuvered the rope from his waist to beneath him, stepping over it.

	“Tezuka? What do you want? Do you know how late it is?”

	“I was wandering.” Rin said, simply. “I was in the courtyard when I noticed the light coming from your window shining on me. I thought God might be trying to talk to me, but it was just you. What do you want?” Hisao could hear the rambling of Rin, and once again thanked God for his good fortune. If anyone could distract the madman, it was Rin.

	“What do I want? Tezuka, you came up to my room, you pounded on my door. God didn’t call for you, so just go away.” Takashi said. He made to close the door, but Rin kicked it. It flew from his hand and impacted against the wall, bouncing back and hitting Tezuka in the shoulder. As it did, Hisao slipped the top rope off of him, and slid off of the bed.

	“Huh. You look pretty weird for a Hisao Nakai.” Rin said. Hisao crept along the side of the bed, and he could see her leaning, reading the name plate next to his door. Hisao crept forwards, and grabbed the other boy’s cane. Takashi stood there, silently, as Rin stared at him. They both remained in silence, staring at one another.

	“You know, for someone so retarded, you’re much too observant.”

	In one fluid motion, Takashi flung the knife from his sleeve into his hand. He pointed it at Rin, smiling. Rin, to her credit, showed no change in emotion, though her eyes flicked to Hisao and back to Takashi. “Finally, there you are.” Rin said.

	Hisao nearly froze, thinking that Rin was giving away his advantage. Takashi laughed, “Don’t you get all high and mighty with me, Tezuka. There’s nobody here.” He said, and he moved the knife closer. “Now why do-”

	“I never really judged you, because you always hid yourself.” Rin said. Hisao chose that moment to swing forward, the cane catching the other boy in the side of the cranium. He dropped like a sack, falling to the floor and dropping the knife.

	Hisao stepped over him, to Rin. Takashi groaned on the ground, opening his eyes and then suddenly lunged for the knife. Rin stomped on his hand as he tried, and the boy howled in pain. “I think I hate you.” She said, pulling back her leg and kicking him square in the face.
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	“They found Natsume’s body. She was hanging in the sculpting room, just like you said.” Hisao told Rin as they sat together in the empty art room. “The police said she was drained of blood, and all Nomiya did was complain about the smell. The principle is considering firing him, after what I told him, that he’d placed Takashi under the pressure of completing another piece. They think his Tinnitus was driving him to do it, it's why he kept talking about 'the music.'” Hisao explained. "He'd stopped treating it, and it drove him a bit... well." Hisao finished, lamely.

	Rin, for her part, sat in her art chair, foot raised with a brush between her toes. She had taken down her central picture and was adding to it, despite Nomiya's order not to.

	“That’s good.” She said, a bit unfocused. “I hope she rests well. I hope we all do, in the end.” Hisao bit his lip, a bit uncomfortable with the topic, but what else could be said after what had happened.

	“I would have been his next picture, if it weren’t for you.” Hisao said to her. She stopped drawing for a moment, looking over her shoulder towards where he sat.

	“Don’t be silly.” Rin told Hisao. “I stole you already, I’m not going to let someone else steal you.” Rin said. She smiled at him and Hisao found himself returning her grin.

	She sighed, looking back to her picture.

	“Is it finished? Can I see?” Hisao asked.

	Rin nodded her head, “You can see.” She said simply.

	Hisao walked over to her, and could instantly tell the difference. Towards the center of the image, a girl with two different eye colors now had a pair of white wings added to her back. She looked almost peaceful, much more at rest than Takashi’s demonic artwork, which the police has taken all of. The school wanted no part of it, after they found out how it was truly created, against Professor Nomiya's protests.

	But that wasn’t the only edition. There, standing next to Emi, was Hisao himself. His right hand in his pocket, leaning to the side, and a smirk on his face.

	“My hair is not that messy!”