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<font color="000000">Souji stared at the last PM he received and twitched. He'd moved to stand in front of the door before it came in, expecting Aidan to tell him to open the door, but this?

He pulled the door open and shot a look at him.</font>

<font color="#000000">Soujirou looked out the window at the scenery passing by. Here they were, utterly alone, on the way to London. Naturally, Aidan was driving, if only due to complaints about Souji's own driving skills (which were perfectly fine, thank you).

Still, it was altogether comfortable and yet completely not. Being alone with him that is. His father had been giving him not-so-subtle hints about ending this "relationship" of theirs before it ruined his life. He could readily agree that staying in it was somewhat detrimental to him attracting a future wife. There was also the problem that Aidan was a Lezard, which most likely grated on his father's nerves for reasons Souji disliked thinking about.

Those aside, this was a fake relationship. So why was it difficult to just say and end it?

uhh, REFER TO THIS!

<font color="#000000">Another nightmare. The third increasingly bad one this past week. Soujirou was used to having them once every few weeks, but the past two months or so, he'd been riddled with them. Not only were they increasing in occurrences, but they had been getting worse in nature.

The dregs of this one still clung to him as he started awake, breathing hard. His eyes were open, but everything in front of him was a blur and all he could think of was of the iron tang of blood pouring down from the oddly open-ceiling room. His brother was there, soaked in it as much as he was, bearing the wounds of that fateful day, a knife in hand. And Umeka...

No, it had been a nightmare. Nothing more. Nothing less. Just a nightmare. Souji grasped more tightly at the bedcover underneath as he tried to control his breathing and wake up further. He would get up when he was more sure of himself. But the images were too vivid at the moment. Felt too much like reality.

It had been - two? three? - weeks since their argument, and Soujirou had had no desire to admit fault in it. Truthfully, both of them were to blame, although Aidan was less likely to actually apologize than he was. Even then, Souji already knew he would not apologize for keeping his own point of view.

Still, it had dragged on long enough. To be truthful, Souji would have dragged it out longer, if his mother had not sent him a package of loose tea. A sort of encouraging present that he tended to get every semester. But Souji, like his uncles, preferred coffee. The one person who would actually appreciate this gift better was. Well.

Who else?

Soujirou had sighed and given into the omen that had been presented. Though he doubted his mother would have appreciated it being taken that way. But still, here he was, standing in front of Aidan's door with absolutely no warning beforehand and knocking.

Soujirou always had a difficult time figuring out what he thought of Aidan. They weren't exactly friends persay. But they were close enough for most people to think they were anyways. And with the new "relationship" they had now (though it was more like throwing another layer on top of all the others that were there already), who knew what people thought of them.

He remembers having been annoyed at this boy following him around, popping up in the most unexpected of places just to bother him. It still annoyed him, but not as much as it had in the beginning. Souji suspected that if his old self could see him now, he would have a stroke. Perhaps try and change things from the beginning, if he could. Though from where he was standing now, he wouldn't have. Except for maybe one or two spots.

He valued what friendship they had. Who knew why, because Soujirou didn't. He'd sat there on occasion, trying to figure it out. Trying to put his finger on what made them tick and why it wasn't as bad as it should have been. All of those ended the same way: with a migraine.

So in the end, he would just brush off all the deeper, analyzing thoughts, and just settled on the present. Live and enjoy what he had, so to speak. He knew far too well that everything was fleeting, anyhow.

Soujirou remembers having called Yori (who had left earlier than they had to join her parents) when they returned to Japan. All transportation in and out of Narita Airport had been shut down because of the massive storm that was coming in from the east. Travel out of Tokyo would be impossible until the storm ended. It was just luck that Tori, Tori's older sister, and himself had made it safely into the airport and he had been calling people to let them know they were all right.

Next to him, Tori had been eating a cup of apple jelly. Absently, while listening to yet another family member talk to him with concern, Souji had reached out to take the spoon Tori offered him, scooped the jelly, and ate it himself before he handed the spoon back to him.

"Haha!" Tori's sister grinned at them as they both looked over at her, Tori more confused than he was. "Indirect kiss," she explained.

Soujirou just rolled his eyes as Tori choked on the apple jelly. He made her finish the rest of the calls for that.

Truth be told, Soujirou slept through his nightmares. He had taught himself in his early teenage years to dream lucidly. To participate actively, so he could do what he wanted within his own dreams. And so, even as his usual nightmares doubled and tripled in severity, he stayed.

It hardly mattered. It was the same subject. Always Shuuichirou that he saw in his dreams. His corpse, to be more exact. He couldn't begrudge his brother haunting him. He deserved it. Reminded himself of his goal with it.

***

This would be the third nightmare, Soujirou had thought when he found himself in an octagonal room. It was a normal enough bedroom, save for the fact that everything was stark and sterile - white furniture, white curtains, white walls, and white wood floors. He had raised his eyebrow, looking around and wondering where the nightmare was.

And then he felt something drip onto his head.

He reached up to touch where it had dropped. His fingers came away wet. Looking down at his hand, he found blood on it - red and still warm.

Soujirou looked up. And there was his brother (he was only ten when he died and yet he looked twice his age here), his body strung to the center of the ceiling (Shuuichirou had been on the floor when he was found) and gazing lifelessly down at him. Clothes torn to shreds and covered in gaping wounds (but he had died with only one wound), blood seeping and dripping off of him. Blood now soaking into the ceiling and slowly spreading down the walls, turning them a bright red, pulsing with life flowing away from the corpse above him. The wood floors took on the same red ever so slowly as pools of blood began to form.

He realized quite suddenly that he was barefoot. That he could feel the warmth of the blood. That the blood was beginning to soak the thin clothes on his own body. The familiar stench of iron lodged itself in Soujirou's nose. He knew from experience that sensory memory would not let itself be forgotten anytime soon. His hands were shaking faintly. But he did not need to flash back to his childhood memories. They were already in front of him.

"Sou... jirou..." the corpse rasped slowly, its lips and eyes rotting away to nothing with every movement.

Always, there was the sorrow, the mourning for the loss of the man his brother could have grown up into. The guilt of his death and his own responibility over it. Even if he had not been the one with the weapon in his hand, Soujirou knew he was guilty as charged.

"Aniue," Soujirou softly whispered, fearing that any louder and his voice may tremble, then bowed low in greeting, slowly straightening up again to look at him. His head was growing heavy with the blood that was now dropping like rain from the ceiling. His feet were nearly covered by the blood on the floor. The walls seemed to pulse and throb like the walls of a beating heart, slowly closing in. Was he to die by drowning in his older brother's blood tonight, then?

Shuuichirou's hand slowly, slowly reached down to him, rotting away to only a skeleton's arm, the bone red with the blood dripping down its length. "Cannot... forgive..."

Souji watched in silence, feeling the blood drip onto his upturned face, and took in familiar features now made horrendous. The blood was now up to his knees, rushing back and forth around his legs. There were no words of comfort, no apologies that he could give. None of them would ever be enough. All he could say, he said again and again, in countless nightmares that he had had over the years.

"I cannot die yet. My work is far from done. Wait for me patiently, I will come when I am ready. You will have your revenge."

And then he forced himself awake.

It was beginning to become habit, now. He'd walk out of class and sooner or later, there he'd go, following Aidan to wherever it was he went. Soujirou had met a good five people and had become familiar with a few new places as well. And while being dragged out was nothing new, it was this sudden influx of meeting new people that had him suspicious.

Tonight was only another night to add to the list. Though technically this was not any new meeting. It was a law student Soujirou had run into on occasion at the library.

Still... He shot a look at Aidan as they walked back toward the dorm. "Mind telling me what it is you're doing?" Soujirou asked, just loud enough for him to hear.

Soujirou sighed as he logged off the university's blog system, shooting a glance at the fridge in the kitchen where he had put the castella to keep them fresh. They were still good - after all he'd taken as much care to prevent them spoiling on the trip over as he could - but extra measures couldn't hurt. He stood up and went about putting the rest of his things away, letting his mind drift as he did.

Yesterday's conversation with Tori while they had been shopping had been somewhat harrowing. While he was all right with regular reminiscing about his brother, he couldn't help but feel somewhat guilty whenever Tori spoke with that nostalgic tone about Shuuichirou. But the past was the past. Regrets did nothing for the present, or the future.

And speaking of the future, exactly how had Aidan known when he had returned? He frowned in thought.