Isopropyl

Red wine

He would feel that frosty tingle in his nose and cheeks, the ones that make his gaunt and pale face slightly more appealing. Running uphill was never as fun as barreling down, he'd come to realize. It's an exciting challenge to try your damndest to be the fastest but not trip from the large spacing in your uncoordinated steps and fall on your ass and end up rolling the rest of the way down.

With his heart thrumming in his chest and the hot swirls of his breath whizzing pass his face, Hitoshi doesn't dare look back as he hears one of his mates yell, "Scatter!" and then disappear off into the forest.

They're the thugs in this mission, and their goal is to escape the heros.

It's dark out, with splats of stars and a half moon filling out the sky. Broken yellow street lamps illuminate the slushy roads below them. Hitoshi just keeps running, remembering what he'd learned from those loud-mouthed third years from his school and fixes his posture. It would be easier if he wasn't holding another person (even if she was a little girl). But this whole night wouldn't go according to his plans, he would soon realize.

He would remember that he needs to breathe in his nose and out of his mouth, even though it stung like hell each time he'd do so. He would try to scramble for an idea as to where to go, what to do. He needs to get to home base, but where was home base?

And then he heard shouting from somewhere behind him and it sounded like it could've been someone on his side but honestly who knows at this point when everything he knew and everything he was began falling apart, and there's a crying little girl on his shoulders and he just kept wishing that this was some stupid pretend game. But he's really gotten into the deep shit now, huh?

And then a shot rang out through the air, causing the girl to scream and for Hitoshi to turn around, and god that's when he wishes he'd just kept going. But it was Kichirou (the closest person he has at that moment as well as the asshole that made a 10 year old make a stupid, risky, dangerous decision no 10 year old should make) that was rolling in the snow as his weighted body slid down the icy slope.

He would also scream out of pure fear, because it was the first time Hitoshi had ever seen another person bleeding out like this. He, too, fell over in the snow as he forced his body to propel the opposite way. Towards the dickwad that put him here in the first place.

He would begin mumbling incoherent things to Kichirou as Hitoshi crawled on his knees to him. When getting close enough, he would cup the man's bearded face in his half-gloved hands. The little girl, his sister who's he's trying not to blame for this whole night turning on him, clutches to his sweatshirt with little white knuckles as the tears never cease to fall from her large, round face.

It was all just so awful. The way he spasmed in his arms. The way the white puffy ground underneath them turned into red wine. The way the snowy sidewalk was steaming as his warm blood hit the bitter outside air.

"Hitoshi?"

The way his new father called to him. The way his voice cracked. The disappointment. The confusion. The betrayal.

He wishes that was him on the ground.