The clouds in the air hung as low as the spirits of what remained of the student body. The air smelled of wilted flowers and rain, and a heavy fog sat among them.

The fog, however, could not hide the funeral portraits. Each student's portrait was a clear as mud. Some people could not bear to look at them, while some stared intently, almost trying to wish them alive. People stood side by side with a well-kept distance, silence hanging in the air. They had run out of chairs, but even those with chairs stood, whether out of respect for the dead or just to see their faces. 

"Wilbert Casavill, Stacy Cheng, Brendan Cruz.."

It didn't matter if the projector slide filled with last-minute photos did any of the victims dirty. Some students even laughed at some, turned to the person to tease them, just to realize the person they were looking for was the victim. It was during those moments when the eerie feeling of death seeped in. 

"Robert Gallagher, Liam Koch, Conner Kozlov.."

The priest holding the ceremony could not bring himself to speak, and the microphone would not allow him either. It hissed, it screeched, and eventually, the priest gave up. His only nephew had been one of the dead, and he choked up every time he tried to speak. The officers who were there on the day of the incident were also visiting, and they were running out of umbrellas and tissues. 

"Candice Lai, Amelia Lambert, Brian Long.."

Wait,  Ishaan thought.They didn't say Yu-jun Lee.

No one else seemed to realize this as they were absorbed in their grief. 

"Wyatt Nelson, Jeremy Neuvill, Arslan Omar.."

A hooded figure, blending in with the umbrellas, emerged. A dyed blue streak of hair peeked out the hood, in which the figure tried tucking back. They looked up at the ceremony. 

"Yu-jun."

There was a slight flinch from the figure, and Ishaan felt relieved. He was alive. 

"Yu-jun it's you, isn't it?"

Some heads turned at that, but Ishaan waved them away as the figure slowly inched back. 

Suddenly, he dashed away, and Ishaan ran after. The sheer amount of mourners and their umbrellas hid them away from the eyes of the police as Ishaan ran after him down the street.  "Yu-jun, wait up! You look suspicious right now so just stop-cough, running!"

Yu-jun did not stop. He ran down the streets, hopping over fences, scaling walls. Did he always know how to do that?  Ishaan thought. Then he remembered that Yu-jun was part of several athletic teams. 

To heck with people from the taekwondo club. And the track team. And all the crazies.

Though he had said this, Ishaan did not have trouble following him. He was still very hot on his tail, following him amidst all the obstacles, and pulling off the crazy stunts he did. At one point he realized they were running on the roofs of buildings like it was no big deal, jumping from building to building, window to window, on a  rainy Saturday afternoon. Ishaan wondered if he might end up on the press, realizing that that would get him into serious trouble. 

"Yu-jun stop! We're both going to get caught if we keep, huff, doing this, so" he wiped his chin dripping with sweat. "Let's stop, okay? Let's talk." 

At last, Yu-jun himself turned around, panting. He had a look of shock, of pain. He wiped the snot dribbling down his nose promptly. His choppy hair was soaked with rainwater, and it dripped, making ripples in the puddle below. 

"Listen, I, I'm just glad you're alive." Ishaan tried to talk to him normally. "We were all worried." 

The rain poured down some more on the two of them. 

"You're soaked. Go back."

Ishaan squinted. "No, something's wrong. You know something don't you-?"

"What if I did? I didn't do it, okay?" He huffed some more. "The murder. I was there, I just ran away. All there is to it." He turned away. 

"But that's not it. There's no way you could've-" Suddenly, he thought about it. No matter how athletic Yu-jun was, was it possible for him to be that fast? So fast that someone like Ishaan could not catch up with him? 

"No, no, that's enough." Yu-jun slowly backed away, as if he knew what Ishaan was thinking. "I'm leaving. I'm leaving okay?" 

"Wait-" 

He sprinted away. Ishaan tried to catch up, only to have boxes pushed onto him. His school shoes failed him and lost their grip on the ground, tripping him. By the time he got up, Yu-jun was nowhere to be seen.

Dang it, he cussed internally.