Two nights had passed since that day, since Serpheria.
And yet, nothing had happened.
The dreams she mentioned? They never came. Not even a hint. No whispers, no warmth, no frost-laced fire curling at the edge of his consciousness. Just silence. Ordinary, suffocating silence.
His days were filled with the same mundane routine. Helping around the house. Helping his grieving mother, offering her endless hope he himself had lost years ago. Filling his empty mind with useless hobbies, ones he'd picked up and abandoned countless times, anything to forget the dull ache sitting permanently in his chest. It was the same weekend routine he'd adopted six months ago, ever since everything had fallen apart.
Walking out of the bathroom, towel slung over his shoulder, he found his mother sobbing on the couch once again. In her trembling hand was a picture, creased and worn, of a man holding a baby in his arms. His father. His baby brother.
Quick on his feet, Yuma crossed the room and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
"Mama…" he whispered softly, rubbing her shoulder in slow, comforting circles, choking back tears of his own that hadn't even had the chance to fall.
"Baba… ya baba…" Her bottom lip quivered as she looked up at him. Her eyes glimmered with tears, swollen and puffy from hours of crying. "What if-"
"Mama, no," he interrupted gently. "They're okay. We will find them… you know, Baba wouldn't have been killed. And he wouldn't let Amin get hurt." His voice steadied, even if his heart didn't. "Have faith. They will return."
Despite the reassurance spilling from his lips, Yuma didn't believe a single word of it.
Six months had passed since that harrowing incident. Six months of waiting, of false hope, of unanswered questions. All it had done was plant a seed of rage deep inside him. That phone call, his mother's blood-curdling scream echoing through the house, still rang in his ears. The memory alone was enough to make his blood boil.
After nearly an hour, he finally coaxed his mother into bed. Once she was settled, he retreated to his own room, closing the door behind him and locking it quietly. The moment he turned, his eyes burned as they locked onto his pillow.
The second he was within arm's reach, he threw a powerful jab straight into it.
The pillow burst, feathers spraying everywhere.
Too angry to notice, he continued relentlessly beating it until it was nothing but torn fabric and fluff. All he could see was the image of the drunken man who had crashed into his father and brother. The man who shattered his family and left his life in ruins.
All he could feel was failure.
He should've gone with them on that trip to Germany. If he had, maybe he could've saved them. And if he couldn't… maybe he could've killed that man himself.
The thought only fueled his rage further.
Then came the memory of the officials. The way they had come to "ease" them with information, the driver's five-year jail sentence, the fines, the paperwork. All Yuma could remember were their smiling faces, as if they had just become angels delivering good news. Deep down, he knew nothing meaningful had come of it. Five years was nothing. It was an insult.
Eventually, his strength gave out.
He stared blankly at the destroyed pillow, his breathing uneven. The tears came then, harder than they had during his rage. Curling up on his bed, surrounded by silence and feathers, all he could do was cry quietly into the darkness until exhaustion dragged him into sleep.
When morning arrived, Yuma woke up bleary-eyed. Pillow fluff was scattered everywhere around him. Too tired to care, he dragged himself out of bed and into the bathroom, stepping over the pile of clothes he'd tossed into the corner the night before.
He went through the motions of his routine mechanically. Brush teeth. Wash face. Avoid the mirror longer than necessary.
Before leaving, he kissed his mother goodbye and headed out for school, skipping breakfast entirely.
By the time he reached school, he took his time making his way to his first class. Unfortunately, that hesitation became his undoing.
A small but solid mass slammed into him from behind, pushing him forward and nearly sending him stumbling to the ground. Yuma spun around, adrenaline flaring, fully prepared to beat someone's ass…
Only to be met with a familiar, sincere smile.
Keisuke.
Just seeing it eased the storm raging inside his chest.
"Hey, Yuma!" Keisuke greeted, smiling even wider, somehow making good feel better.
"Hey, bro…" Yuma replied, his voice dragging slightly as something caught his eye.
At Keisuke's exposed neckline, just above the collar of his shirt, a faint curve peeked out. It shimmered softly, a pink hue that looked almost like a tattoo. Yuma squinted, leaning slightly to get a better look…
But before he could, Keisuke quickly lifted his collar, hiding the mark entirely.
"Something wrong?" Keisuke asked cheerfully, as if he were hiding absolutely nothing.
Yuma stared at him, suspicion stirring. Since when did Keisuke have a tattoo? He'd seen him shirtless before; there had never been anything like that. This had to be something new.
"Since when did you get a tattoo?" Yuma asked, genuinely curious and more than a little confused as to why Keisuke would hide it from him of all people.
Instead of answering, Keisuke froze.
For a long few seconds, he stood there motionless. Then his eyes slowly drifted past Yuma's shoulder.
Following his gaze, Yuma turned around.
To his surprise, Akira stood there, staring directly at him. His expression was dead-calm, cold, calculating. The kind of look that felt less like curiosity and more like evaluation. As if he were deciding whether Yuma was a threat.
Confused by Keisuke's reaction and irritated by Akira's sudden appearance, Yuma stepped aside, positioning himself so both were within his line of sight.
The three of them stood there in an unspoken standoff.
An awkward silence stretched between them, heavy and tense.
Both Keisuke and Akira stared directly at Yuma.
And for reasons he couldn't explain, Yuma felt like something had just begun.