Adrian didn’t know what he had been expecting when it came to what Haruka was so keen on showing him, but with her it would forever be a thing of spontaneous outcomes. Haruka could have been bothering him all this time only to show him something as simple and stupid as an ant or as complex and important as some suspiciously obtained fingerprints that had ended up revealing who Adrian’s high school stalker had been.

She was a wild card, a chance, and upon walking into the back area of the arts room, he realized just what she was at that one moment. She was crazy.

One had to wonder how she was even able to access this back area on the first day of school in the first place but when you looked at reality and realized that Haruka’s father was the superintendent of the school, you couldn’t really wonder too hard. The girl had access to anything that she wanted.

“Haruka--…. It’s a picture of a rose.”

“No..? Really?” The sarcasm was practically dripping from her voice as she stood right next to the painting and placed her hands in her pockets. “Look closer pretty boy.”

And so, he did. He took a few steps closer and he looked at the painting. It was as beautifully drawn as a picture of a flower could be and there was nothing on the canvas except for this one, lone, white rose. The stem was green, healthy, its petals pure white although there was one particular petal that seemed to show the telltale signs of death approaching upon it.

It was a white rose that was dying.

“You drew this?” Were his next words even as his honeyed eyes saw her unique signature at the bottom corner of the canvas.

And “Yes…” was her answer. “…But I can’t remember drawing it. I remember getting the idea, I remember the vivid detail in my mind and having an intense urge to draw it but… I can’t remember actually doing anything…”

Adrian titled his head to the side and looked at Haruka with a frown. He understood what she was saying and how the concept of not being able to remember what she had clearly done could be jarring, but he didn’t understand the big deal in it.

That was until he remembered his own recent dilemma. His thoughts as of lately hadn’t been normal as well, neither had his actions or emotions. He couldn’t really judge her for her reaction but as he looked at her, she looked at him as though she had more to say but wasn’t entirely sure if she should say it.

“What else is there?”

“The painting is changing on its own, Adrian… did you catch how a petal seems like it’s dying? Well it was drawn like that, but… it’s like the condition of the flower is getting worse.”

Adrian’s eyebrows knit together and both of their moods were dead serious so it would have been useless to call bullshit on Haruka’s words. He knew her well enough to know when she truly believed in something and when she was trying to pull his leg, and right now… she was serious.

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“Well… how is this possible? Paintings don’t just… change.”

“Don’t you think I know that, dipshit. I’ve googled every possible explanation that I could and my ass is stumped!” She threw her hands in the air as if to insinuate this. “I remember other things too though… things you would think are crazy.”

“Like?”

“Dante…”

Adrian faltered. “What do you mean…?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never met him, but I remember him, Adrian. The memories aren’t there but the feeling of knowing him is so…”

“So…?”

“…its real. They’re real.”

“Well… I believe you…” Adrian looked off to the side, wondering if he should reveal the weird happenings that he himself had already experienced, but something within him said to not talk about it. The time wasn’t right, the place wasn’t right, and quite possibly the worst part of it all was that his intuition wasn’t very trusting of Haruka. He had known Haruka since he was young and dumb, had acquired a fleeting crush on her in middle school. They ranted to each other, bitched, and yet his mouth at that moment did not want to form any sort of words that would hint towards what had been going on. “…. So, you think this painting correlates with him?”

“Yes.”

He thought back to how Dante seemed to be a bit hurt. “Physically?”

“I don’t know that much…” Adrian watched as Haruka crossed her arms over her chest.

“’Have you tested this hypothesis?”

“What?!”

He cleared his throat and took a few steps closer to the painting, hiding his emotions in a way that he hadn’t been sure that he could possess until that very moment. “Well if this rose really is changing like how you say it is, then who’s to say it’s because of Dante? It could be someone else? It could have an entirely different reason for changing altogether.”

He looked back at her and then at the painting. It was a very beautiful rose.

He brought a hand up and gently touched the canvas, right where the stem of the rose was and gasped as a flash of a memory hit him.

Or perhaps it wasn’t a memory this time but more so a vision.

A vision that he had seen play out before.

Curly dirty blonde hair splayed onto the floor, hazel eyes conveying so much pain and so much defeat. Bruises, cuts, a silent sort of scream, and fear that was paralyzing an deafening.

“Adrian!”

He brought his hand away from the painting as if it were a hot stove and he had just foolishly burned himself on purpose, whipping his head around to turn towards Haruka as she called him.

“Dude, what is up with your hearing today?! I called your name at least ten times!”

“Sorry…”

It was Haruka’s turn to give a big sigh and a roll of the eyes. “Its fine whatever. I know it’s a lot to process and you probably think I’m crazy as shit now bu--.”

“I don’t think you’re crazy, Haruka.” Adrian looked at her seriously then and Haruka faltered.

“Really?”

“Yes, really. If I thought that you were crazy, then I would have just called you crazy from the get go.”

“You’re a good friend.”

“Thank you, I do try.” He moved away from the painting then and ruffled Haurka’s hair much to her annoyance. “I have to go, it’s getting late and traffic sucks.” He hoped that he didn’t seem like an asshole, but he did have a lot to think about now.

“Nah, I understand man. “Haruka poked out her lips, a habit that she really had never gotten rid of. “See you tomorrow?”

“Yeah…”

Haruka opened her mouth as if to say something but Adrian beat her to the punch, which was unusual. “I won’t tell anyone about what you showed me. Let’s just sleep on it, alright?”

“Alright.”

His briskness was mostly due to his underlying want to not talk about Dante to Haruka, and this again came from that same instinctual intuition that he couldn’t quite pin point.

He made his way to the door, knowing that Haruka was closely following him but probably wasn’t going to leave this room for a while.

“Text me.” He pushed for something familiar.

“Psh, you’re not my dad. Maybe I’ll text you, maybe I won’t.”

There. Familiar.

“Suit yourself.” He turned the handle to the door and opened it, looking back at haruka one more time and giving her the middle finger, only turning his back and leaving when he saw that it was properly reciprocated.

With the sound of the door clicking shut though, his demeanor faltered and panic shone through his eyes in the most obvious way possible.

Fuck. Fuck.

Fuck.