That day I felt my world crash around me. I'd been dating Sofa Callas for two months. When she invited me to her house, I was excited and nervous. Her parents were absent. I thought we were going to pass to the next step in our relationship.

However, I got confused real fast. She was talking to me about Claire and Akira. I didn't understand why they would be mention at this time. I mean we were at her house alone, and a few seconds earlier, we were kissing and groping.

“Jacob, stop! We need to talk. It's important.”, she shouted to get my attention out of the gutter.

“What?”, I asked impatient. I really wanted to get back to what we were doing.

“Claire isn't feeling well.”

“Why should I care?”

“She's our friend. She needs our help.”

“Yes, she's our friend but if she needs help she can ask for it, can't she?”, I reasonably argued.

“She asked me.”

“Huh? So why are you talking to me about it.”

She gave me a light punch to my shoulder. “You're my boyfriend, you need to help too.”

I didn't get her logic. True, I was her boyfriend but she was the one asked for help, not me. I didn't say so out loud though. I wanted to get on with the conversation as fast as I could.

“Akira-”

“What did he do this time?”, I was getting worked up just thinking about him. He had been my best friend before he raped Claire. We had been as close as brothers as we knew each other since we were babies.

“He's stalking Claire.”

“Really? Let's report him. That's the only thing that can be done.” I didn't want to see him again. Each time I saw him in the past, I always felt grief. When he attacked Claire, he didn't just hurt her, he cast a wound into our friendship. The kid I thought I knew was just a mirage. I felt hurt and betrayed that he hid his true personality from me.

“We can't do that. We don't have any proof.”

“So you want me to help you getting them?”

“No, dummy. We need to be the witnesses when Claire will lodge a complaint to the school board to have him expelled.”, she explained to me like it was an evidence.

“I didn't see him do anything, did you? It's been nearly two years since I last saw him.”

“You just have to say that you saw him, that's all.”

“Wait! You can't mean that. I can ask some of the guys to follow Claire around to catch him red-handed. That way we won't have to lie.”

“It will be too late. He's going to hurt her again. We have to save her. ”

There was something wrong. If the guy was really doing something reprehensible again, why did we need to lie? We just had to tell the truth. I told her my thoughts.

She sighed at me. “We are her friends. It's normal to do things like that for friends.”

“No, it's not.” I knew the idea she had of friendship were a little extreme but that went way too far. I tried to reason her again. But she didn't want to listen.

“Friends have to protect and save each other. When I was younger did you know that Claire saved me from drowning? That's what friends do.”

I knew the story. It wasn't as impressive as it sounded. When she was 8, she fell in the pool at her house. Claire who had been there dragged her out and thus, saved her. Truth was the pool was 19 inches deep. Basically it was a kiddy pool where she could have walked out on her own with no problem whatsoever. However it had made a deep impact on Sofia and she always felt grateful to Claire.

It was also one of the reason I didn't want to help Claire. If you look at Sofia, Claire was her best friend. If you look at Claire, Sofia was just someone she could take advantage of. She always did or gave whatever Claire wanted. I didn't like it. Their relationship was completely unbalanced. However if I told her that, she would dig her heels in and the situation wouldn't be resolved.

“We'll have problems if someone discover that we lied.”, I said in a last ditch to convince her that her plan was stupid.

“Don't worry. No one will suspect a thing. It worked the last time, it will work again.”

“What last time?” I had a bad premonition about it. “Sofia! what last time?” She looked at me with guilt etched on her face.

“I had to do it. If I didn't say anything no one would have believed her. He deserved it after what he did. I had to do it.” Was she trying to convince me or herself?

“What did you do?”

She fidgeted looking everywhere but at me. “I lied. I never saw him rape her but... can't you see it was the only thing to be done. He would have got away with what he did.”

“How do you know he really did something? Because Claire said it. Are you stupid?”

“You see! You're taking his side.”

I looked at her feeling a deep pain in my chest. Was she really that delusional? My smile was bitter, she still wouldn't meet my eyes .

“Do you actually believe yourself? No don't bother. We've got nothing to say to each other again. If I ever heard you say anything about Akira again, I'll kill you.” I said right in her face making sure she could see how serious I was. “Do you hear me?” I shook her.

She slumped on the floor . “You can't mean that. You're my boyfriend.”

“Not anymore.” I left her home before I broke down.

That night I didn't go back to the dorm. I spent it sitting on a bench in the park. In my mind, three words kept repeating themselves “I betrayed him, I betrayed him, I betrayed him...”.

When Claire called Akira a rapist, I didn't believe her. It was just her words against his. There were no evidence, no traces on her body, nothing. Then Sofia confirmed everything and from then on, others started talking about Akira's weird behavior towards Claire. I confronted Akira, he kept saying he didn't do anything. I felt my world crash around me. After everything, he was still lying to me. I remembered how betrayed I felt and the look Akira gave me when I didn't believe him. They were haunting me now.

The more I thought about it the angrier I felt. When morning came, my face was drenched in tears and my fists were clenched tightly. I wanted to make her pay. I wanted her to feel the pain Akira had. I lost my best friend, the guy I considered to be my brother because of her lies. I wanted to destroy her.

Since that day, three months passed in which I meticulously planned Claire and Sofia's downfall. I kept smiling on the surface as I prepared everything. I didn't talk to anyone about what I knew. They needed to feel safe for the fall to be harder.

I didn't try to contact Akira. After what I did, I didn't dare to show my face in front of him. But then, the headmaster asked for a meeting in his office. I was shocked when he started talking about Akira and the plan he had to rehabilitate him.

The plan was a little sketchy but if there was even a tiny chance that it would work I'd take it. What I didn't count on was that the headmaster would reject me because I agreed too fast. I tried to beg. I wanted to atone for what I did to Akira. It could be the chance I never dared to dream of. I could help him.

And then, I saw Akira. I was paralyzed. I wanted to run to him, to tell him how sorry I was and that I would avenge him but I didn't move. Only his name came out of my mouth. He mostly ignored me but the few glances he gave me were filled with loathing. My face heated.

“Aw! Are you still pouting?” I looked back shocked at the out-of-place words that came out of the headmaster's mouth.

I kept trying to get Akira to look at me but it was useless with the headmaster trying to make fun of us.

“So they're the ones? Congratulations! You're going to live with me. So when you're done gaping, you can come home. He'll tell you how to get there 'cause I need to go hang myself. Bye!” Fed up with what was happening, he suddenly got up and left.

The next time I saw him was when we moved in the penthouse. Two hours after leaving the headmaster's office, we were waiting at the dormitory reception for the teacher to show us the way to our new place.

As we waited, a lot of people stared at us. However, only one dared to inquire about what was happening.

“What's in these boxes?”, Patrick one of my friends asked.

“Our stuffs. We're moving.”, Elliott, my roommate until now, replied.

“All of you are moving?”

“No, just Malcolm Blake, Tomas, Elliott and I. The others are just helping.”, I answered this time.

“Oh, where are you going?”

“We don't know. Mr Sorenson is going to show us the way in a moment. Why don't you come with us?”, Elliott invited him. I didn't think we needed more people but it was already done.

“Of course I'm coming with you. So have you told the girls?”

“No, and you won't tell them anything either.”, I said looking in his eyes.

“Why not?”

“Because we're going to live with Akira Kirihara.”, Elliott answered with a sneer. I wanted to smack him but I refrain. It wasn't his fault. He believed that we were going to live with a rapist.

“WTH?”

“Don't talk about it, okay?”, I pleaded. Elliott was looking at me with a weird expression.

Mr Sorenson, the teacher responsible of the dorm, finally came. “Now that all of you are here. Follow me.”

He led us out and around the building. We were looking perplexed at each other trying to figure out where he was leading us. We passed the service gate where provisions for the cafeteria arrived. They looked at us weirdly. A group of twenty guys holding boxes as they went to an area where there was nothing, was pretty suspicious. We rounded the building. There wasn't even a path. We just followed Mr Sorenson in silence as he refused to answer any of our questions.

Finally, we arrived at a door hidden behind bushes. As we entered, we saw that there was just a corridor leading to an elevator. We took it to the only place it connected to. We ended up again in a corridor with only one door. We knocked.

Akira opened and let us in. The entryway led to a large room containing a sitting room with an open dining room and kitchen. We all stood in the room looking around us. There were many plants but I didn't see any other room.

The guys and I approached Akira to asked him where our rooms were and he told us to look up the stairs. At first, we didn't understand because we couldn't see any stairs nor any upper floor in the room. But then, he showed us that most of the plants were used as a separation between two rooms. As we passed the plants, we ended up in front of large floor to ceiling bay windows.

Our jaws dropped. Through the windows, we could see a garden. We put the boxes down and went through them. The garden was beautiful. On one side, there were flowers planted. I could see that there were a lot of different types. Each one of them was a different color from the others. When I looked closely, I could see that they were put together following the rainbow colors.

On the other side, there was a vegetable garden with tomatoes, carrots and the like. Right in front of us, there were trees planted here and there. They were for the most part one foot tall but they made it up by having a lot of leaves and some were even having fruits.

As we advanced in the garden, we came upon a small pond. Fish were swimming in it. We looked around and we all had the same expression on our face. We were amazed. We could have never guessed that these were on the roof of our dormitory. As we looked behind us, we finally saw the upper floor of the penthouse. From where we were, it all looked like a house with a veranda and not a flat at the top of a building.

Before long, we headed back inside and went to check on our rooms. There were 6 single bedrooms each equipped with their own bathroom. I chose the room next to Akira's. Elliott chose the one on the other side. The guys were still gushing about how lucky we were to move in this place. I was getting a headache from all the commotion of the day.

“I'm sorry to be rude. But would you mind leaving for today?”

“Yeah guys, it was nice to help us but now get your ugly mugs out of our palace.” Elliott said joking.

“Haha ha! Funny. You look tired, Jake. We're going only because it's you who ask, not Ape man over there. See you at school.” One of our

friends said while leaving.

“Thanks. See you at school.”

We followed them down as they left. Akira was still in the kitchen, cooking. The guys ignored him. I felt awful like it was my fault. I wanted to say something but I didn't know what. Elliott came to the rescue. He said sorry to Akira and tried to make conversation with him. I was still trying to think of something to say. The others had joined us.

“So where's the fifth guy?” Akira suddenly asked.

“What fifth guy?”

“The fifth guy who'll live here. Five guys are supposed to move in, there are four of you so where's the fifth guy?”

We looked at each other to see if one of us heard about it. All answered by the negative.

A knock sounded on the door. We looked again at each other, waiting to see who would open the door. Malcolm went. We saw the headmaster with a bag on his shoulder. I didn't understand what was happening but Akira seemed to get it.

“Oh hell no! You said students will live here!” Akira yelled.

“Happy to see you too Mr. Kirihara and too bad, I changed my mind. I'll be living with you.”

Furious, Akira left the kitchen. I looked at his back as he disappeared behind the plants.

“Are you really going to leave with us?” I asked the headmaster.

“Of course, Mr. Clarke. I can't let my precious students without supervision. That would be remiss of me.” He said with a smirk on his face, looking at me like I should be the most annoyed at it.

I didn't understand. What did I ever do to him? For the few months he had been headmaster, we never talked to each other. He had always looked cold and uninviting. So I tried not to get in his way. This morning, when he called us to his office was the first time I was close enough to actually exchange words with him.

Needless to say his cold and uninviting appearance shattered as soon as he started to talk to Akira. He had been sarcastic as hell and his personality didn't look like it was any better. I didn't dare say a word. I had a goal to reach, sins to atone and people to crush even if I had to go through the headmaster, I would do it.

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