Melted Lies

Chapter Thirty-Five: In The State Of Decay

A blood-curdling scream took over the entire building before it got completely silent. Ayase fell to her knees and began to sob uncontrollably, her tears were appearing so fast and there were so many of them that she almost choked.

After the entire Kousei incident, she did as he asked her to, visited the neighbours and gave them the bad news. Unfortunately, Kiyoshi and his friend were awake and eavesdropping on them and there was no way for her to convince him that she was lying, joking or just telling a story. The boy started crying and just like it is with little kids the other one started crying as well just because the other one did, and no one could calm them down. Ayase took out a kitten from her coat to somehow change the centre of their attention but then little Kiyoshi recognised the animal as his pet, Milk, and didn't want to let it go which only worsened the situation. The boy was sleeping in someone else's house for the first time in his life, which was already an emotional event for him. Together with the tragic news he was not supposed to hear, he didn't want not only Milk to stay, but also Ayase since less or more, they were familiar with each other and he felt safe with her. And in that situation, she had to be heartless to refuse. It was only for one night and Hime was probably back asleep already, that's what she thought.

But she didn't know how badly she was mistaken yet. In the morning, the girl said goodbye to the boy and with the cat under her coat, went back to the hostel. She asked these people if they were willing to take care of Milk before leaving but they refused so it seemed like she became his host family for a while.

The hostel room was empty and for the first moment, she thought that Maki was back and she went with Hime to get some small groceries for a day. There was no sign that her sister ever was there though, nothing like q toothbrush, slippers and her bed remained completely untouched. The thing that completely got rid of her doubts was a pink sticky note that she found on her pillow, with a short message on it.

"Hello, it's Rei. Hime is with me and I'm taking her home so don't look for her. She's fine."

She knew that man was observing them but it didn't even cross her mind that he did it at such weird hours. She also knew that he was up to no good and couldn't understand, how on earth did he convince Hime to go with him. Because there was no way he took her forcefully, if he wanted to do that he had enough chances for that.
But it didn't matter how he did it, but that he did it. She promised Hime that everything was going to be okay. She gave her a promise and the next morning the girl was gone. They lost.

Ayase didn't know whether her friend was being hurt, didn't know if she was even still alive but at that moment she honestly wanted to die. She wanted to die so badly that it was tearing her apart as if someone tried to rip her flesh open from the inside of her body. The feelings of pain and grief were so intense that she felt physical pain in her chest like her heart was being squeezed crushed by an invisible hand. She could barely catch a breath in between screams and if she didn't scream, the pressure on her vocal cords made her cough and choke instead. She felt like she was about to vomit but a moment later was back to screaming her lungs out. Her tears were intense enough to create a tiny puddle on the floor in front of her. Probably she wouldn't have stopped until her body reached its limit and gave up but some people, terribly worried by the sounds one by one came to the room and tried to console her, calm her down somehow. They all failed though. Their voices were muffled in her head and their faces blurred. Their hands felt so distant as if they didn't even touch her skin. That is until one person suddenly ran into the room kneeled in front of the girl and hugged her tightly, hiding the girl's face in her chest which confused her enough to rip her out of that state. Everything was still unclear but she could see that with each second there were less and figures in the room and finally she was left with that one person who kept hugging her. Ayase sniffed, wiping her eyes and pulled away just to see her sister with the most worried expression she'd ever seen. Maki hugged her once more and held her little sister's hands in hers, giving her a caring smile.