I was looking down at my feet making a step after step. My fingers poking from the strap of my yellow slippers looked pale and numb but I can feel them perfectly pressing on the concrete road of the neighborhood who witnessed everything that night.

Police car sirens woke all of them and everyone in the neighborhood gathered around our house while our parents' blooded selves under the white sheet were one by one lifted inside the ambulance.

I was staring blankly at them. They are looking at me with udging eyes, whispering. And up until now they still do the same. Never did that change.

"Uhnnn..." Chinen Yuri let out a sound. "Why are they looking?"

"They must found you strange." I said. It's a lie. Partly lie.

"Strange?"

"You look too Japanese to have green eyes."

"Oh that." He pursed his lips. "I thought of using contact lenses before."

"But you didn't."

He smiled briefly. "They remind me of my mom and I want to remember her always."

I slowly move my eyes on him. "Didn't she come here with you?" This is actually getting me? Am I strarting a conversation?

"She was killed when I was fourteen."

I gasped. My feet stopped. "Killed?"

Chinen Yuri looked back at me with confusion but still he nod. "Both my parents were killed when I was fourteen." He paused. And the next thing he said made my legs tremble. "With my own brother." His eyes used to be smiling but right now they look scary.

I stayed staring at them when suddenly his lips arched a smile. "But I'm fine now."

"W-Why would your brother kill them?" There's a part of me that wants to know.

"It's an initiation."

"What... initiation?"

He was looking at me ready to tell me something this world shouldn't have known. The tension in his face was most visible. His eyes kept on me expanded in a split second as he turn his face in the opposite direction.

I catch my breath with the familiar sound.

Sirens.

Police and ambulance.

"Kawashima!" I just heard Chinen Yuri's voice from behind when I run on the direction of the sound.

I can't be wrong. These sounds! They were the same sounds that deafened me two years ago. My feet kept running. The crowd in front of a biggest house in the neighborhood stopped me. This was the same crowd from before. Camera flickers and I can only see the silhouette of a girl held by a lady officer in the shoulders.

She stood there, looking blankly at the crowd. Her eyes were like mine that night. With her dishevelled hair, her mascara stained made trails of lines of tears from her still watering eyes, lipstick stained on the side of her lips and the uneven rising of her chest, I can't barely mouth her name, I can't even believe it's her I'm seeing.

Two bodies in white sheet were carried out from the house and into the ambulance. was shaking when her eyes landed on the blood-stained sheets. stiffened, her panting went heavier. She shouted hysterically, falling on her knees.

Maeda Nozomi is broken.

I catch for more air. Her voice is sickening me!

I never thought I would, but I saw myself on Maeda Nozomi. That was the exact me that night two years ago. I fell on my knees and I felt bare hands on my shoulders.

"Kawashima!" His face blurring but I can properly see his green eyes.

The heavy breaths I'm leting out seemed to clogged my throat from forming words. His soft fingers run through my hair. "Are you okay?" His voice were whispers.

"I need to go." With a final breath I took in the deepest part of my lungs, I was able to let out a sentence.

He helped me get up. I look at my yellow slippers. "I'm going home." I started walking.

"Wait, Kawashima!" He was about to say more when media men started blowing questions that sounds so sickening in the ears.

We the direction of the fuss. There was boy, standing infront of every camera. He seemed enjoying it as a little smile was arched on his face.

He is Shota. Or Sho-chan to everyone in the neighborhood. Unlike Maeda Nozomi, he is kind. And sweet. That's why he is loved by everyone.

But, Maeda Nozomi's thirteen year old brother was all stained with the musky smelling blood. His small hands handcuffed, he slowly lifted and showed a finger on the camera while his little smile became wider.

Everyone was left shock.

So am I.

I can't contain it anymore. I had to go away from here. I had to run. Too fast that I can't even hear Chinen Yuri calling.

*****

"Where were you?" I gasped at the sudden voice I heard from the dim living room.

"I..." I swallowed a chunk of the cigarette-smelling air. "I just... I just went on to the convenience store."

He looked at my empty hands.

"I...I did not..." I gulped one more time. "Th-The item I ne-needed...w-was not available."

He doesn't look convince as he blew smoke in the air. Lifting himself up from the couch, he started walking closer to me.

I was trembling. He knew I'm lying.

Closer he gets and I had to shut my eyes.

There was a click behind me and when I opened my eyes, the lights were on.

"There!" Haruma-nii was smiling at me. "Better if the lights are on."

I nodded awkwardly. "Y-yeah."

He started walking on the kitchen after pressing the lighted cigarette on the ash tray, took a glass of water and swallowed a three types of drugs. I watched him consume all the water to push the drugs in his system.

Those were medicines he took since I've known. He needed them more than he needs cigarette. He needed them to stay the way he is. He needed them so that he can be with me. He needed them and he'll be taking them until he is well.

My brother is sick.

Always been sick.

*****

Maeda's house was surrounded by yellow tape. Some police were still there to guard. They are still trying to find evidences though it was all obvious who did it. And still, there are some curious people who'd come and go on the crime scene.

I wasn't supposed to step out from the house today but Chinen Yuri had the guts to call me again this morning. He wanted to meet up and threatened to be at my door if I won't agree. And darn, I fell for that!

He was waving at me from the glass wall of the coffee shop.

"What is this?" I said the moment I sat on the chair in front of him.

"A little peace offering." He said in a smile.

"Darn! Chinen Yuri I had no time for this!"

The other customers looked at me and Chinen Yuri had to let out a forced laugh. "Relax." He whispers. "Take an order, I'll pay f--"

"What is this really?"

His smile  vanished. "Maeda Shota..."

I gulped as I remembered the murderous look at Sho-chan last night lifting a dirty finger at the reporters with blood on his cheeks and on his tee-shirt.

"He admitted doing the crime." Chinen Yuri continued. "Nozomi-chan witnessed against her own brother and pointed him to be responsible for their parents death but she is still under investigation. The police are still trying to figure out if she is not allying with Shota in doing such hideous crime."

"Why are you telling me that?" I asked him.

He sighed. "Say," he leaned on the table between us, "you remembered something last night, do you?"

I concealed my nervousness with a frown. "Just because I run away? I was frightened! So what?"

He sighed again. "You need not to lie. I know what happened to your family two years ago."

I rolled my eyes and leaned back on my chair. "Of course!" I shrugged. "Did the university students had already supplied you with enough information about that?" It was sarcastically said. "Coz if not, I can give you more!"

"I know what you feel." He stared at me with those green eyes.

Should I agree? Maybe. He might know what I feel. We both lose our parents. We were left alone. Condemned by the world. Did the world condemn him too? Is he unsatisfied with this world too?

"There's a confession I wanna say." He said out of the blue and I was curious. "You see my eyes?"

They were beautiful. Who wouldn't?

"I was not born with them." He said and I held back. "I was born with dark-brown eyes."

"What are you trying to say?"

"They were my mom's...literally." His words consumed me. I did not speak. I think I forgot how to. Not a little reaction on my face. "My brother took my eyes." He looked at me again. "Literally."

I was panting, waiting him to continue.

He clasped his hands together. "That night, before my brother proceeds on killing our parents, he scoop my eyes with his claws." Running his fingers on his eye. "I can still feel his nails on my sockets. I wanted to shout but he taped my mouth. I wanted to push him but he tied both my hands and my feet in the chair. But he didn't kill me. The thing I wish he did. He just wanted me to not see how he'll do it. But I heard, he tied them in the bed and stab them numerous times."

What on earth am I hearing?

"I had to undergo for an eye transplant. My dad's eyes were not a good match but my mom's were. So I'm wearing her eyes now."

I took a deep breath and wander my eyes randomly. "T-That's s-so...unfortunate."

"That's not I wanted you to say." He said and I can't help but lift my face to find him.

"What?"

He stared at me. "Maeda's case. My case." He paused before blinking. "And yours." His emerald eyes darting on me. "They were all the same."

"What do you mean?" That my brother did it?

"You saw it. You saw what happened to your parents that night, Kawashima!"

"I did not!"

"You did!" His voice become softer. "You did. You're just afraid."

I shook my head continuously. "No."

"I didn't sa