Memories {Oumasai/Saiouma}

~ 21 ~ Fictional Reality

Bunch of movies in hand I walked back to Shuichi's room, being careful not to drop anything, swinging the door open with my hip, cheerfully yelling.

"I brought the goods!" A sob and sniffle sounded throughout the room causing me to quickly, but still carefully throw down the movies in my arms, replacing them with Shuichi. "What's wrong Shu?" He looked up at me with a face full of despair.

"I've failed... I failed once... and I've failed again..." He just managed to get out his words in between his sobs.

"You haven't failed anything, what are you talking about?" I played with his hair trying to calm him down.

"Everyone is dying again, and it's all my fault. It was my fault the first time, and it's my fault now." I didn't know what to say, I wasn't able to know exactly how he felt since Shuichi befriended everyone... and I made most of them hate me.

"Sometimes... you can't change fate. I know it hurts Shu, but things will get better, you were able to move on before, and you can do it again, okay? This time you have me by your side!" I was debating whether I said the right thing or not but got my answer when Shuichi stopped shaking in my arms. His sobs grew quieter and further between as he calmed down.

"Thank you Kichi. Sorry for let-" I cut him off with a kiss.

"Stop saying sorry for no reason! Or I'll have to punish you~" I chuckled, poking his nose.

"P-punish?!" His face went from pale to tomato red in an instant, I couldn't help but break out in laughter, causing tears of hysteria to run down my cheeks.

"I meant I'll take away your eyeliner! What did you think I was saying~?!" I knew what he thought, that's why I used a flirtatious tone in the first place.

"U-uh.." Shuichi stuttered out random noises as he tried to come up with an excuse.

I let out a fake gasp of horror. "How could you Shuichi? Imagining such dirty things! You filthy sinner!" 

The both of stared at each other in a short silence before laughing together. I'm glad I can make him laugh, I just wish I could take his pain away too. I stood up and made my way over to the pile of discarded movies, picking his favourite one and showing it to him. "Wanna watch this?" He nodded so I set it up and jumped on the bed next to him, smiling as he pulled me into his lap and wrapped me in a gentle hold.

We cuddled and watched just over half of the movie which mostly involved me teasing Shuichi about random things, and Shuichi either complimenting me or overanalysing the movie (mainly the latter), mumbling out random stuff I honestly didn't understand, but it was cute. I paused the movie as Shuichi's phone rang, not bothering to hide my annoyance.

"Why can't we just have some fucking alone time?!" Shuichi exclaimed before taking a deep breath and answering the phone. His facial expression immediately changed from one to annoyance to one of horror and sadness and back to annoyance again, I knew what that meant. Is it just Miu... or Gonta as well?

No matter how hard I tried I couldn't make out what the person on the other line was saying, so I decided to tune out and swing my legs against the foot of the bed, patiently waiting for Shuichi to finish. I didn't have to wait long for something to happen before he grabbed my hand and pulled me to his office, hanging up the phone and sitting me down.

"I think you know what happened."

"Was is just Miu?"

"Just Iruma." I looked down, waiting for him to explain the details like usual. "She was found strangled to death in a back alley, apparently she had illegal connections so we now have more reasons to suspect a criminal organisation to be behind the killings. She had some serious debts to some people so those should be our first suspects."