Back at home, I was essentially dubbed by my family as a good and kind young boy. That description probably carried over to my neighbors, and well kids my age around the block. People praised me for my kindness. My parents told me that I was happy, outgoing, sociable, an ideal son in a family. Life was simple. I felt that cling of simplicity. I was carefree and devoid of any complications.

Then maybe I took a sharp turn on the highway.

Sometime in my life, I began to be that one person who's fond of theories and connections—The unusual what-if's that aren't usually commonplace in plain hindsight unless if you just overshoot a little. I'm that kind of person until now. I suppose that when that part of me started to become more pronounced, I felt like I'd be one of the four billion humans to have a more pronounced frontal cortex—more or less the similar case to Albert Einstein—well that's just me assuming I'd get a headache now and then.

Because of that, I was always busy and stressed. My parents would usually get mad at me for being the boy that's no longer kind and polite. They're somewhat sad that they no longer have the Akko that they love.

Right now, I'm the type of person who'd oversaturated the meaning of thinking out of the box.

Because I always do think out of the box.

Sure that may be advantageous to a lot of situations, but that means I can't deduce simple scenarios, outcomes, hypotheses, and outputs. Basically, that's what you call overthinking. Maybe I would be fit to become an intelligence officer of the army who is more into strategic planning, I don't know.

If I tackle the reason why I hate society, it's because I thought society is ignorant.

I always thought that people are just too ignorant to recognize.

To be really honest, even I thought that Miko and Ala-chan were ignorant when I told them my problem about Tomo's mishaps on me. Let's just say the solutions or remedies they provided weren't enough to satisfy me. It was dry or half-baked. It's as if they just wanted to end the conversation and move on. It's like saying that they don't care about me if I got hurt by Tomo at all.

Take that to society, and that's what I meant about society being ignorant.

If you talk about your problem with one person to another, listening is the best thing that they could do ninety-nine percent of the time. I appreciate that they're on my shoes, but once we get to the practical and simple solutions. It's either they try to remedy you with other solutions that don't involve the victimizer or tell you, indirectly or directly, that "It's your problem, face it yourself, why do I need to talk to them for you?"

Sure, that may be a simple and petty crime or attitude.

I care about attitude, because that scales.

That one bully who stole your pen? He might be a criminal now.

That one girl who sexually harassed you? She might be a prostitute now.

That kid you stole money from? They might be poor right now.

That smoke-belching car you kept on using? Maybe the world is a little warmer because of that.

Of course, now I sound like a broken-record, but let me shed some light.

That classmate who was hopelessly drawing a stickman? They might be an artist accepting art commissions now.

That kid on the road who keeps on bringing his Formula One race car with him? He probably is a racer now.

That poor family you'd occasionally give money to? They might've had enough to get their child to school again.

The rally you lead for a new youthful charter? Many people might've been inspired even if you don't see it.

Attitude scales.

Even the littlest things matter.

You might now have an idea why I'm such an overthinker.

Because of that, I really thought I was the king of the hill—that one person who recognized you really well of your problems, sympathizes with you, and looks down on the ignorant herd of humans who just live, laugh, love their way into life thinking that they're way too ignorant of the world around them. I really thought I was about to start a movement. A Cold War sort of advocacy that makes people undeaf of the problems in society. An advocacy that can end all sorts of relationship problems. And finally, make people understand well.

In the end, I was just like one of those embarrassing people who wishes for world peace.

By leaning too much on philosophies, theories, brain candy, and questions that sound intelligent and makes you question your existence, I instead created a world for myself. Alone in the void of that world was myself crowded with the theories and philosophies that I have spewed out of my mind. Eventually, that led me to hatred in society.

I let my questions be answered by myself. No proofreading or peer-review.

The only reference was me.

Just somehow, my only wish was that people would be more open-minded. Help each other. Be one family in spite of blood, culture, surname, kinship. Be selfless. Attain justice.

We're one species after all.

Though oddly enough, one species that feels like many different opposing species.

We're just weird.

At any point, somebody's just going to reprimand me because I'm not in any position to do so.

Because at the end of the day, only you can save yourself.

...

I basically took a nap that night.

It wasn't a dream—well, maybe it's a dream if you count me in a black void ranting.

My head's all fuzzy and what not. Since Ala-chan and I had a talk in bed before we really went to sleep, I'd say we slept at around nine thirty.

From facing the wall, I looked at the opposite side towards the end table. I can already feel that the bed is unbalanced in terms of weight.

"Oh right, Ala-chan is gone."

Vanished out of thin air, like how Hollywood does it when the character is delusional then becomes conscious afterwards.

I leaned my head as to not make much of a movement to see the alarm clock on the end table beside the bed.

Too lazy to read analog clocks, but the hour hand is past eleven. It's still April second.

It's usually difficult to sleep and wake up midway in the night. What I did is that I kept on telling myself that I forgot to log in to HeroTom to claim my login rewards. It worked. This is critical on my part because I certainly have to pull this one off. It's either I live or die, both literally and figuratively.

Good thing my mind still trusts my body.

If you were to ask me, why not use Ala-chan's alarm clock? That's totally out of the question. Let's just say this is a stealth mission.

Essentially, this is a mind game.

"..."

Very slightly, my eyes opened while staring at the ceiling. Pretending to be asleep.

There wasn't any sign of danger as of yet.

Aka isn't essentially knowledgeable by any means, but she told me that this part of the city is like a sugar cube on an anthill. Basically, it's really a recipe for disaster in this ongoing prowler case. Though Ala-chan was just half-sure that she is the youngest around here, I'd say the information we crafted on our brains was eighty percent reliable since I walked out around these parts to find nothing but old geezers. Not to mention, the City Square is facing this neighborhood, so the train station is very close.

The night is calm, and silence still continues to dwarf the premise.

Seriously though, why go to the trouble of cosplaying Ala-chan? You can't see anything in the dark anyways!

⁂

Struggling as I am to stay awake, about twenty minutes later, I can start to feel the wall vibrating. At first I thought it would be like standing on the second floor of a mall where that's just normal due to how kinky the Earth's mantle is. But this is a small townhouse, so I know this isn't normal.

This is paranormal.

As silently as possible, I tried to readjust my blanket and somehow conceal myself inside of it where my forehead and hair is only visible from the outside.

Then a felt a thud on the walls. Seconds later, the wooden floor began to sound footsteps.

Shit.

Step by step, it was nearing this direction. I tried my very best to calm my body down, but it seemed like it was doing the opposite.

The footsteps stopped. I can feel a radiant of warmth from the other side of the bed. Not necessarily laying down beside me, but if I were to picture the room in an isometric view, the figure is standing in front of the bed.

...

Yeah, the figure is just standing in front of the bed.

Is this like one of those games where you really have to move near the NPC to progress through the story?

As risky as my life could be taken away, I tried to roll away from the wall and near towards the edge of the bed, looking like as if I'm looking with the figure still with the blanket covering two-thirds of my head.

Slash! A knife pierced through the blanket.

Even though I don't have the same reflexes as Sayre's, I immediately jumped off the bed, to one corner of the room like some sort of toad or something. My reflex lags somewhere around a second to three, but it's still enough for me to move instantaneously.

Cornered in one room, the figure appears to be significantly shorter than me, as the window casts a silhouette from here. It's a rough estimate as I was squatting from the corner from that jump. They were still dead radio silent and probably will never speak. The figure looked in this direction and is about to launch a projectile as evident from the formation of an L-shape figure on her right arm.

I waited for the throw as if I expected the sight for a whole school year. The moment the figure threw a five-inch knife in this direction, I immediately slid on my way to the adjacent corner of the room, near the door so to speak. We're still aligned as she walked up to the bed. As the faint light faced to her direction, I can draw out that this figure has below-shoulder length—somewhat grey hair. At this distance plus the lack of light, I can't deduce their eye color, but this killer sure is clever to wear a black face mask

As they are about to throw yet another knife, I braced for my next move. This time, I cartwheeled on the way to the next corner of the room the moment they threw the same five-inch knife. No I'm not athletic nor a cheer dancer, I just like to do a cartwheel for whatever reason. The moment I landed upright near the wooden desk and mirror, I quickly knocked off a leg of the chair and immediately threw it to the killer whilst estimating their arrival at the corner where I first flew in. Unfortunately, the killer dodged it with quite an art and actually jumped to the corner just before this one. In simple context, they're now the person nearest to the door.

But I figured something out.

Eventually, I was wrong. This isn't just going to be a game of a cat chasing the laser.

Instead of the killer taking out another knife, they immediately ran in this direction. I didn't move at first because the killer takes the advantage that the moment I run in no other direction than to my right, then they would have more time to shift her direction. Closely observing that they'd reach halfway the distance to here, I quickly tumbled to the bed, thereby causing them to hit the desk and the mirror. By this, they have little to no time for a split-second to think at the last minute.

BANG! The table made some noise.

The killer took quite a lot of damage, but my head is also taking some knowledgeable damage. This sort of strategic and mental thinking is really leeching me off a huge amount of energy.

The killer was physical, I was mental. Oil and water.

While they were trying to recover from that impact, I quickly dashed my way to the first corner I jumped into which is adjacent to the door and beside the closet, which is just beside the bed. So now we're even Steven—both of us standing at tips of a hypotenuse if you were to integrate Trigonometry into it. I regret it later on as I cheated on my stance, so most likely the killer would too.

Facing in this direction, the killer prepared multiple sharp projectiles on their left hand as seen from the reflection by the ambience light cast by the window. I just knew what I had to do.

The moment they fired one exactly three milliseconds after it lifted up from her hand, I started to roll myself—albeit somewhat slowly—to the corner where the door is. The barrage of projectiles have lined up on the wall. What I didn't expect is that she was also running towards this direction with a longer weapon while she fired all of those, almost like two cars on a collision course from a Y-shaped intersection.

Before I hit the corner, the killer already resisted my limbs. While I carelessly put my hand in front and swiped it downwards.

!!!

Click!

The room was illuminated.

My eyes adjusted to the bloom of light from the immense darkness of Ala-chan's room. While I was held aggressively, I still can't get an idea of who the heck is this that's trying to kill me.

But it's as if time stopped.

As my eyesight recovered, I can see that the killer punctured through the sleepwear and plain white t-shirt that I've been wearing underneath with a machete. I hadn't felt like it punctured the epidermis of my skin, as my whole right hand stopped it. I didn't use my hands to resist the weapon, but rather to reveal the true face of the killer.

I lied about the calculations on this very corner. We all like to be certain, but it's human nature to estimate. First of all, I purposely stopped in front of the door as opposed to having stopped at the corner. That was a split-second decision as I didn't expect the killer to run in this direction. In a MOBA game, you'd call this trick flanking where you purposely yet indirectly direct your enemy to a spot—like a joker of some sorts. That way, the killer's assumption on me landing on the corner will be false. Hadn't I done that, the knife would be directed at my heart.

Since I landed in front of the door, the knife pierced through my clothing on my right arm instead.

While the killer has one of my limbs, I got their face and identity. It'll depend on how you'll absorb this scenario, but in most cases this will likely stop the chain. Not only that, but I got ample and concrete evidence of a crime, Ala-chan's parents sleeping just beside this very room, and the neighborhood is pretty watertight. Taking those three factors versus this killer's only intent to rip off my limbs was a natural selection of majority.

It was a close stalemate. If that machete was pointed at my heart, it would've been a simple check.

We stared at each other for five seconds. Even though it felt like a whole hour doing that—my eyeballs felt itchy doing that for a short amount of time.

"A-Ala?! O-oh, uhm, hey."

I wiped some of my makeup off then messed up my hair.

"Nope, this is your Akkin." I said.

"..."

"How's life Tomo, something good happened to 'ya?"

She groaned more as she looked to the side.

Tomo Omoe.

A completely different character, you wouldn't even tell if this was still Tomo at first glance.

But I do.

Wearing an eccentric wardrobe of clothing that's dominantly black with dark purple accents, an array of pockets for her knives and weapons at her waist, her silver-grey hair now tied in a messy bun as opposed to her cute twintails, and her black face mask now at her chin. Her clothing between now and for the past month is so night and day that you'd be mistaken at first if Tomo cosplayed as an undercover ninja of some sorts in a convention. While I like her totally eccentric looks, feeling like I could get a sign from an aspiring cosplayer, I don't like her character at all.

Still, I can't believe she called me Ala. Holy mackerels, Ala-chan must've been a legendary make-up and dress artist or something.

Ala-chan's room, it was once a remarkable feat of interior design, purely designed and carefully laid out by an elegant and poised lady who is tomboyish on the outside with a happy-go-lucky attitude. Now, this room is severed with a lot of knives of all kinds that collided with all four walls except this huge window in front, a partially damaged desk, a chair that's missing a leg, a comfy blanket that has been punctured.

Not only is the room broken, but also lost its beauty and femininity.

Without a doubt, that's not even the room's title right now, that title belongs to Tomo.

The most broken thing in this room who also lost their pure and good-willed femininity.

The girl who painted nothing but grieve and longing onto this beautiful room of Ala-chan's.

A prime textbook example of avenge.

It's more than just a cat roughhousing your entire room into a mess—no this is on a completely different scale.

...

Tomo and I continued to be in this position. She now stares in this direction with a dreadful and menacing gaze as if the knife already punctured through my eyeballs instead of my limbs.

"You know Tomo, that's an irky attitude towards other people. Mind if you stop wearing such a menacing and ugly face?"

"Shut up," she kicked on my leg and stood up, retracting her machete back into one of her pockets, "Where's Ala? Why are you here, sleeping in a woman's bedroom?"

"Don't worry, I also have no idea where Ala is. Also, she borrowed me this room. Stop saying it like we're strangers, geez."

She immediately got a hand on her machete, grabbed me by the top of my sleepwear, and immediately stanced, where the machete directly pointed at one of my eyes while we're extremely close to each other's face.

"Don't you dare talk to me like that! I-I'll stab you to death if I want to." She exclaimed.

"'Talk to me like that?' You know that your actions are more shocking than your words." I paused for a moment. "Now you're doing this to your knight in shining armor? The love of your life?" Then I chuckled. "What did I do if I may ask? You're doing all of this under a motive, so you can't stay silent this time, girl."

"... Hah. Hahaha... Hahahahhahahahhaa!'' After some silence coming from her, ironically, she suddenly laughed hysterically. Crazy, I know, but it felt lacking. Just like her.

"You know you can't just laugh over it either." I said.

She threw me over to the door, as she stood before me with a machete.

"So are you just going to throw me into places until I'd eventually die out of multiple organ failures? I already spoke my part. I hadn't heard a single bit coming from you." Not entirely sure if she's scared or embarrassed to say the truth due to the fact that I have my right to report it to the police. I'm too lazy for that, but nonetheless she'd be caught at the end of the tunnel.

"I remember Ala-chan's words of 'Everything that has been voluntarily hidden will spew out one day. It's human nature to keep something hidden.' I've done all the hard work for you, if you didn't mind." I said apathetically, "You could thank my theory-making brain for the hard work. But my little puny mind also has a limit, so wouldn't you mind telling me the whole story?"

"..."

"That silence, that dreadful and hurtful of a silence. You did say yourself that silence means yes, so I'll take that. How about this, we hadn't talked for exactly a week, so how about we'll treat this time as a 'welcome back' kind of talk?"