Murder?? At the wonderstage

Part 3 - The End??

Rui.. Rui? It's 10am, you need to wake up". Rui hesitantly opened his eyes to the sound of his mother's voice calling him. "Huh?"

"Don't 'huh' me, it's 10am, get up or you'll be late".

Rui stared at her blankly. "Late?.. for what?" He asked. It was a Sunday, so there couldn't have been school. "You said you have to meet up with your troupe today to talk about the show yesterday?"

Rui sat up and looked at her with a strange expression, trying to remember if he had really planned that. A lot had happened since he had said it, so he searched his thoughts to try and remember what he had originally wanted to do that day, because it was obvious that his plans were now changed. Suddenly only four words popped into his mind to remind him of what he was doing.

"I love you, Rui..."

"Ah!! Uh.. yeah! I forgot.. yeah.. I'll go when I get dressed properly.. uh.. thanks mom!" He stuttered. She nodded and turned to leave, but stopped herself just outside the door. "You looked panicked for a second there.. is there something you want to tell me?" Her words seemed sincere, making Rui want to tell her everything. But he couldn't, not yet. "No no! Everythings.. fine!". What a great cover up, not. He had taken an unnecessary pause, not suspicious at all! She totally believed that because now she was walking back into the room! She placed her hand on his forehead. "Do you feel ok?"

"Yeah! Why would you think I wasn't?" Rui counter-asked, trying to end this conversation but failing miserably. "You've seemed panicked and been stuttering since you woke up, I was just making sure, but you seem fine, I'll leave you, then." She said quickly and left without giving Rui the chance to say anything back to her. He then lay back down and grabbed his phone to see if anyone had messaged him.

Three new messages from: Nene

Rui are you up yet?

Probably not..

What are you doing today?

He was about to reply to Nene until another message showed under hers.

One missed call from: Saki Tenma

"That's strange.. why is she-" Rui stopped thinking and immediately pressed on her contact to call her back, hoping for good news.

"Hello? Saki?"

He greeted, his voice still sounding a bit sleepy.

"Rui! Thanks for calling back!"

She sounded horrible. Her usual cheery voice was replaced with a fake higher voice than how she had sounded yesterday. It was obvious that she had been crying more last night, but yet she still was still trying her best to play it off as normal, so Rui wasn't going to comment on it.

"It's fine, what did you need to tell me?"

She stayed silent for a minute.

"Well, it's about Tsukasa.. I was there earlier this morning and they had done a few more tests-"

"Please tell me this is good news, Saki."

Rui said, coming off as unintentionally rude and uninterested.

"Um.. there's some good news and some bad news.." She began. "They said that the coma isn't as bad as they thought, so it shouldn't last very long.

"That's good.. the bad news?"

"He hasn't gotten much better after last night.. I know the surgery was rushed, but even after over 12 hours he's nearly just as weak.."