Visual Kei

Jolting awake, Kiiro panted and shook uncontrollably. It had been so clear, so realistic… he shook his head, rising abruptly from his lukewarm blankets. Going to the window, he swept back the drapes, and glanced outside, his skin glowing in the moonlight.

His fist clenched tightly around a section of the fabric. If he didn’t calm himself, he would tear it from its place. Her voice was so clear, so loud in his head, like a horrible cry of pain. As soon as it met his ears and roused him from sleep, however, it fell away and was gone as if it never came. So taunting . . . so frustrating.

Months had gone by without word from her. He still couldn’t put his careless words out of his mind, couldn’t put the pain in her eyes out of his mind. Oh, how he’d wanted to take it all back in that moment following his anger! Even if he didn’t mean it, it was impossible to deny that she really was dead weight. Even so, there wasn’t anything she could do. She was right about that. Was she even still alive? Chino had said that she was still out there, alive and healthy. Kiiro knew better than to believe otherwise, but that didn’t change the fact that she wasn’t coming back.

Living Forgery had resumed its activities with more fans than ever before. Umi was happy to be able to show off Chino in the limelight again. Emiko was living with the band following Miko’s funeral. Everything was good… on the surface. Still, none of them were truly happy. Alice’s presence, although frequently inconvenient, had bridged the gap between some of the members, gave them a common cause. Without that, they were just flawed immortals sharing the same living space. Even Tsurara moped around at times, though he’d never admit to anyone that he missed her. His sorrow had temporarily forced him and Uruha apart. And there was Kiiro, hit hardest by her absence. His pain translated to coldness, and his closeness with the others, even Chino, had suffered terribly. To them, he was a stranger drifting now and then out of his depression to join them for concerts or public events. It was a secret disaster.

Kiiro sighed, the breath draining completely from his lungs, leaving them shuddering painfully. He had promised long ago that he would protect her. Call it cliché, call it drunken stupor, but he had promised. Where is she now? he wondered, looking up at the half-hidden moon. So much could change for a mortal in one short year, but it felt to him like he was just living the same day over and over again on replay. The same morning greeted him, the same sunlight was too-warm on his skin, and the same cold night awaited him in his bedroom, which gathered dust now.

The door to his bedroom opened hesitantly and someone stepped inside. The air changed, and Kiiro tasted tension in the atmosphere. It was bittersweet.

“You heard it too?” Chino asked from the darkness. The vampire said nothing, silently wishing his friend would leave. However, Chino was ever-sympathetic. When he refused to speak, his old friend said, “You shouldn’t have been able to hear it.”

“Why does it matter?” Kiiro demanded, turning to face him at last. “Let me guess, ‘the bonds of love overcome all’, or some bullshit.”

“No,” Chino said, sitting easily on the edge of the undisturbed bed. His eyes were shining worriedly in the moonlight. Although his concern was cherished, it was something that the vampire couldn’t appreciate at the moment. He turned away coldly, crossing his arms as he glared out the window. “She has begun to come into her divinity, Kiiro. She probably doesn’t know that she can now direct her thoughts to others, but that was powerful. I’ve got to hand it to her.”

“You said that telepathy has varying levels of intensity, just like speech.”

“It does, but I wasn’t capable of something like that until a hundred years after I’d discovered and trained my talents. It says something about either her ability or her emotion.”

Kiiro ignored the second statement. “Have you been listening to her since she left?”

“There are times when I can’t see what she’s doing, but I am so attuned to her mind that I see… clips… of her life now. When she feels strongly about something, I feel it in my heart, too. I guess that sounds kind of strange.”

A tangle of emotions surfaced in Kiiro’s heart. Why couldn’t he be the one to peer into her heart and mind? Why couldn’t he be the one to share her emotions? He gritted his teeth and tried to let go of the strange jealousy in his chest.

“She is safe, Kiiro.”

“I don’t care.”

“Yes, you do,” he responded in that all-knowing way of his. Kiiro growled in the back of his throat. “She cares for you, too, Kiiro. A year hasn’t changed that.”

“Why would she think of any of us after walking out?” he demanded venomously.

Chino’s eyes slid to the floor and he clutched something in his hand. “She didn’t leave because she hated us, Kiiro. You know that.”

Kiiro didn’t respond, letting his arms fall to his sides as he leaned against the wall beside the window. Whatever Chino held in his hand glimmered in the moonlight.

“Would knowing change how you feel?”

“I don’t know.”

Chino turned it over in his palm, looking at it almost fondly.

“It is unpleasant.” Kiiro didn’t have to see his friend’s eyes to know that he was right.

“She should be the one to explain. Not I.”

“Give me at least one answer, then,” the vampire demanded, straightening up. His friend nodded. With guarded eyes, Kiiro glared down at his friend. “Has she…?”

Chino looked at the carpet, his hand resting on his friend’s bed. “Goodnight, Kiiro.”

When he closed the door behind him, Kiiro stared down at the wooden floor beneath his feet. Setting his jaw, he gripped one of the bedposts and shook his head softly. On the black comforter sat one of Alice’s earrings. The vampire picked it up and stared at it for a long moment.

It was a flash drive wrapped in plastic electrical insulation with a loop at the top, holding it onto a curved earring back. Colored wires wound pathways through the greenish metal partially concealed beneath the insulated wire. He remembered this particular earring vividly. Although he’d never commented on it, he thought it was strange, but useful. Chino had told him once that she wouldn’t have talked about it, even if Kiiro had asked. He wondered why it was so important to her, and why she would leave it behind if it were. Then, an idea came to him.

As he sat on his bed, laptop resting on his crossed legs, he simply stared at the earring in his hand. Was it wrong to look at what was on it? He pursed his lips in thought, but eventually clicked it into its slot at the base of his computer. A small white box popped up on the screen, indicating that it had been detected in the USB drive. He moved the mouse to click on the “open files” button.