Chapter 1: Fragmented Crimson

"'Kay, I'm going now!" The blonde teenager waved curtly over his shoulder as a nipping winter breeze blew through the sliding doors.

"Heh? Oh, right, that thing. Alright, take it easy Akai. Don't get hit by a bus or something on your way home."

"Yeah yeah, I'll try not to. Later, Boss!" He retorted, disappearing out of the doorway.

Akai's manager gave a brief, open-palmed gesture of a wave before continuing back to whatever he was doing behind the counter. Akai sighed deeply as the automatic doors quietly shut behind him with a *tak!

"Well, I would probably be getting some juicy overtime today too, given how things are looking. But a promise is a promise." Akai grimaced and rushed over to his bike, which he had locked away behind the grocery store.

The Kyoto district had been blanketed in sleet, reducing the usual traffic. However, he pedaled cautiously, his sleeveless sweater hood bobbing behind him.

Winter chill bit through the air, but he was grateful for the icy gusts of wind that helped him on his journey. He had taken the same route countless times, but tonight was different.

At any age, Akai always reveled in traveling at high speeds, regardless of how cold the weather was. He never dressed for warmth and never bothered with a jacket or gloves. He was the type to wear shorts all the way 'til the snow reached over his shoes.

Strangers dressed for the dismal weather gave Akai a look designated for lunatics, but their disapproved staring hadn't bothered him in the least. Even as he continued, the harshening winds couldn't compete with how he'd been feeling lately. He'd only recently noticed it, but he couldn't stop seeing it in other people's eyes. Everyone is…

"So empty. What's up with everyone?" He muttered, "Did I miss something on the news? It can't be the weather, right? Or maybe I'm overthinking things."

It came to him like a Third Eye opening some weeks back. Suddenly, everyone whom he spoke to was wearing a flimsy mask. Whether or not he became better at reading people isn't really off the table, Akai was definitely intelligent enough to read a room or pick up on body language, but this felt almost supernatural. Like, he was seeing a certain side of people they wouldn't otherwise be sharing.

"Like, that guy over there. He has this strange sense of longing. He wants something, but he doesn't even know what it is yet. And that lady, almost the same thing! Oh man, I might just be going crazy . ." He thought.

"Oh dear!"

"Oh SHIT!" Akai hit the handbrakes on his bike almost instinctively, just stopping in front of a startled elderly woman dropping her brown grocery bags on the ground.

"I- I'm so sorry, ma'am! I- I got distracted. Here, lemme help yo-" Suddenly motivated with overwhelming guilt, Akai dove off of his bike and onto the floor picking up discarded loose cartons and bagged vegetables.

"Oh! Why, thank you dear! I really thought you were about to hit me just now! Oh my!" The old woman looked Akai over, almost aghast. "Your eyes are such an exquisite shade of blue, and that hair!" She curiously examined him.

"Hah, I know, I'm not from around here? I get that a lot. I'm not usually so reckless, I just got caught up in my head. Here, lemme help you take these groceries home, ma'am. I should've been paying more attention to the road, and-" By the time Akai finished speaking, he'd unknowingly placed all of the dropped groceries back into their respective bags. In his guilt, he may have packed a few things haphazardly, since the bags appeared to be bulkier. He took the two most awkwardly packed bags with one arm and lifted his bike off the ground with the other.

"Oh my," the elderly woman said, gloved hand on one of her cheeks in an innocent and motherly way. "I couldn't possibly burden you with my grocery walk! It's much too far!"

"Nah, don't worry about it!" Akai said, winking with a smile. "I've got it! C'mon, let's get these home safe and sound!"

Akai hadn't even realized the woman had him walking along to the very ends of his district, passing the time with small talk as the sun retreated beneath the horizon. 

"Jeez, granny, you weren't kidding. This is one helluva grocery walk! And you do it every time you want something from the store? This should be a crime! Don't you have any kids that can drive ya?"

She shook her head solemnly, Akai going completely silent. Although she hadn't told him, the answer had come to him as they spoke. She lost her one and only child some years back to a disease. He doesn't wanna know how or why he knew, but it slowly started to eat away at him. He didn't trust himself and couldn't, for the life of him, think of anything else.

The streetlights had already been at their brightest glow when they reached the elderly woman's apartment.

"You- ah . . you sure you don't need any help packing anything out, ma'am?" Akai couldn't keep himself from bowing respectively.

Despite his kowtow to appease his sin, the old lady had been doing her best to close the door on him. She laughed nervously.

"No, young man! I may be old, but I'm sure I can take it from here! You've been such a dear seeing me home safely, but I'm sure you need to scamper on home as well before it gets too dark out!"

Akai ceased his own nervous laughter to really take a step back and observe his surroundings. He'd been so enamored with the lady that he didn't notice just how late it had gotten. Surely, Nao and Yuna had been-

Akai gasped.

An awkward pause arose as the elderly lady smiled curtly and wished him a safe ride home before closing the door on him. For a while, Akai stood there, gobsmacked.

"No . ." he finally mumbled, reality pelting him with a gust of cold wind. 

He slowly turned around, his legs feeling like cinder blocks as he clambered from the woman's porch and returned to his bike, which he'd hitched clumsily against a street lamp. Sweat beaded on his brow.

"How could I forget", a look of absolute terror crossed his face as he murmured. Slowly, he seated himself on his bike, clutching the handlebars with trembling hands. His whole body started to tremble, not due to the cold winds, but for the reason he left work so early.

"God-" He rested his forehead on the silver handlebars. "-dammit!! Why do I keep doing this?!" He let out a short sigh, raised his head and started down the road. A regretful look plastered on his face. "Not today, how could I get sidetracked today? Of all days!"

His stomach wound itself into a painful knot as he accelerated as fast as he could possibly go.

Suddenly, Akai darted through a green signaling light, causing a man on the sidewalk to dive out of his way. The man shouted some sort of obscenity to Akai's back but he didn't even take the time to apologize for his recklessness. He couldn't dare bring his eyes to look at his watch. Whatever the time was, he prayed for a miracle.

"Maybe Yuna and Nao didn't start without me? Maybe I can still make it!" He thought.

He prayed for time to stand still for him tonight, ceaseless speed giving way to ragged breathing as pitch black street corners became more familiar to him. As his home finally came into his view, exhaustion lodged cement into his lungs. The bottom of his feet felt numb and his knees ached.

"Late . . . Late . ." was all he kept mumbling.

Akai just pulled in front of his house. He gasped, feet limply scraping against the ground as he parked his bike next to the garage. He'd just made it to the porch before he'd heard a voice from inside.

"It's open, Akai." Nao said.

Akai froze, for the first time today. He swallowed hard, weakly pushing the door open to the dim passage light of the house interior. Nao quietly had herself tucked away in the corner leading to the kitchen. Across from her was Yuna, completely silent with her back to him. Silence enveloped the household again as Akai shut the door behind him, none of the siblings saying a thing to one another.

Akai made a slight motion, but his line of sight quickly caught Nao shaking her head. Whether it was in disapproval or not was entirely hidden by Nao's apathetic crimson eyes. Maybe it was a warning.

Yuna lifted her head up, her long brown hair bobbing gently. Akai, who quickly realized she had been praying the entire time. She clapped her hands together delicately, signaling to Nao and Akai that her prayer had concluded. As Yuna turned to face him, Akai could feel himself breathing a little harder, but he pursed his lips and turned away ashamedly.

"That was yours." Yuna said, her voice sharp with disdain. "Me and Nao had done our prayers earlier today for mom, when the sun was still in the sky, and we thought you'd be here with us-"

Akai had tensed up, feeling an overburdening pressure fixated upon him, Yuna's bundled rage masquerading as sorrow. Her gaze had been too much, he could feel it on his skin.

"-honoring her passing."

Akai almost spat, his mind scrambling to find a way out of this situation. "I'm s-"

"None of that." Yuna snapped, interrupting him. Her words felt like a knife in his chest.

"On her Birthday? You made a promise, Akai. All you had to do was be here. Was something really more important to you than celebrating it?" Yuna's voice seemed a bit shaky. Losing her usual, annoyed composure to reveal the pain he'd caused her.

The two finally exchanged eye contact, Yuna's eyes had been touched by mist. The burning conviction in her hazel gaze sealed away how she truly felt with a biting anger she was visibly struggling to contain.

Akai bit his lip, being the first to relent as his eyes darted around the room uncomfortably. The very air seemed to feel a little thicker as his hands, balled into fists, restlessly grazed the bottom of his fingertips into his palms.

Nao sighed, wiping underneath one of her eyes with her index finger.

Akai escaped his thoughts for a moment, focusing on the deafening tick of their old grandfather clock. The glint of crimson from Nao's misty eyes forced him back into the moment. Akai exhaled sharply, unwilling to suffer the torment any longer.

"I screwed up. Really bad." he muttered, not really sure why he decided to say it.

"Why." Yuna quickly retorted, much to Akai's confusion.

"I- . . ."

"Go on." Yuna deadpanned.

"-Almost- . . . hit an old lady rushing home. I helped her carry her bags all the way to her house on the outskirts of the district, and I lost track of time. Yuna- " Akai's head quickly whipped around to Nao, who seemed to return an indifferent gaze to his rising distress.

"Nao, you've got to believe me! If it weren't for that, I would've been here on time. You both know I would never-"

"You're just like him." Yuna shot insidiously, cutting her eyes at him.

Akai could feel the knot in his stomach again once more as his eyes widened on her. Nao looked to the ground, giving a short sigh before walking around the two.

"Bullshit I am!" Akai shouted, raising his voice to match the swirling vortex that overtook his natural blue eyes. "Yuna, I'm NOTHING like dad! That son of a-!"

Akai didn't even realize it, but Nao looked on as her brother got into his sister's face.

". . . And, here we go . ." she muttered.

Yuna whirled, her hair almost going all over the place as she gestured to Akai with a finger.

"Always with another lie! Who exactly are you trying to fool here? Us or you?" she said through bared teeth.

Nao slunk over to the couch, sinking into it with a huff and combing it for the TV's remote.

"Oh, then what's this really about?!" Akai retorted, pointing back. "See, I told you the truth just now and you won't even accept it!"

"And now I need to apologize for you, shirking the responsibility of praying for your own departed mother on her death day! The prayer I did just now, it was for you to find the peace to accept-"

The words suddenly died in Yuna's throat, the room falling back into upset silence once again. Even Nao's ears perked up at the conversation, tilting her head to catch more of an earshot of the bickering. The look on Akai's face shifted from anger to worried confusion.

". . . W-what . . Accept what?" Akai weakly mumbled.

Yuna turned away dismissively, biting her lip almost to the point of bleeding.

"Forget it, I wasn't going to say anything. Just leave me alone. I can't with you right now." She whispered dryly, vainly attempting to walk away.

Akai leapt into her path, much to both of their dismay, eyes freshly watering.

"No. No, Yuna, what were you about to say?" Akai's voice was shaky now too.

"Back off, Akai! I told you I can't right now! At least give me that today, okay?" Yuna's voice trembling as she forced him out of her path. 

"Oho, so this is how it feels to not accept anyone's bullshit!" Akai narrowed his eyes on her. "No, continue what you were going to say!" He shouted.

"Akai, Yuna. Stop fighting already." Nao interrupted, both of their heads turning to her. "Mom is listening." Then, without so much as another word, she tapped the ON button of the TV remote and a brightly-colored anime flashed into existence on the television.

The pendulum of the clock occasionally pierced through the droning and constant cartoon sound FX as Nao silently watched TV. Both Yuna and Akai felt like statues, looking on in silence at the back of her head as she tried her best to ignore them now. Akai sighed. Yuna sighed.

Yuna, unable to hold back her tears now, looked as though she was finally going to mouth something. A moment of doubt crossed her eyes and she acquiesced to Nao's demand. Without another word, she stepped past Akai and wandered into her room, shutting the door behind her.

Akai fumbled for words to Nao, also giving up when she turned her head to face him, and made his way up the staircase to his room. He quietly stepped one foot on the staircase before turning to face Nao once more.

"Don't . . . Fall asleep on the couch, okay Nao? Try to be in bed before that happens."

Nao didn't respond, but nodded her head slightly as she watched the TV. Akai crept upstairs quietly, Nao only picking up the creaking of his door opening and then shutting as he vanished out of sight behind the wall obstructing his room from the first floor.

With a defeated sigh, Akai pulled his sleeveless sweater over his head and tossed it toward the foot of his bed. He gasped sharply, watching as the sleeve clipped a lone spider lily plant on his window sill. 

Akai rushed to the plant, repositioning the damaged petal. He adjusted the plant to hide the broken piece. The heater kicked on as he did this so Akai quickly shut his bedroom window. 

As Akai moved toward his dresser he caught a glimpse of a family picture framed on his black desk. In the silver frame was a photo of him and Yuna standing next their late mother who was holding Nao. 

A big smile ran across Nao's innocent face. 

" . . He wasn't even there for that." Akai whispered to himself. He slowly crept further into his tight room, and caught sight of himself in the mirror he'd punched out of his dresser some months ago. The moment his eyes met his own, he felt a shiver run down his spine.

The fragments of his face all stared back at him with glowing, crimson eyes.