━━━━༻ ❀ ༺━━━━ You choose any other path ━━━━༻ ❀ ༺━━━━

It was easy making a choice when she could detach herself from any emotion in order to rely solely on logical reasoning for the decision-making process, though executing it was another matter. Because before she could do anything, before she could even move a muscle, something—or specifically, someone—came barreling towards her. Her arms reached out instinctively to catch them.

It was Kieran. Surprise flickered across his face when he saw her but that soon disappeared behind his flirty wink. "Well, hello there. You're finally throwing yourself into my arms now, huh?"

She reeled back and scowled as she attempted to pry him off her. "You wish. Now get off me!" But he wasn't letting go.

"Jay stabbed me," he whined, taking advantage of the situation to hug her. "It hurts. Comfort me?"

"Put some spit on it, you annoying fart."

"...Your concern is so heartwarming. You're just like the hedgehog I used to own."

She lifted an unamused eyebrow. "Because I'm prickly?"

"Nah, both of you are too cute for your own good."

Something flew across the room before her eyes, a blur of blue and white that moved too fast for her eyes to follow. It—rather, he—crashed against the opposite wall and slid down with a pained groan.

Kieran let out a low whistle at the sight. "Damn, this is priceless. I'd gladly pay front row seats to see Leo-chan throw Trish-chan around any day." He released her to pull his phone out from his pocket and aim the camera at the blue-haired male. "Say cheese!"

Leon and Jaehyun were now engaged in a fight of their own. The blond had tried to sneak up behind the taller male to stab him with a knife he'd somehow gotten his hands on, but Leon's animalistic instincts proved sharper and he caught the blade before it reached his skin. Jaehyun screamed something unintelligible as he flung something that gleamed gold under the light from his hand at the male.

Leon managed to knock the objects away before they could hit his face and they clattered onto the floor. Thumbtacks, (Y/n) realized with growing horror. They were thumbtacks.

But the distraction had paid off. The black-haired male had lowered his guard, just for a fleeting second, but it was enough for Jaehyun to seize the opportunity and stabbed forward with his other hand, the knife sinking cleanly into Leon's hand.

"Well, sh*t," Kieran commented as he took one last picture of Tristan's crumpled state. "I'm not cleaning any of this up later."

"Shouldn't we stop them?" As she watched the fight, her hand had unconsciously flung out to grip Kieran's arm tightly. Whether it was in fear or worry, it didn't matter. "I don't know about you, but they don't look like they're going to stop any time soon..."

"Yeah, they're not," he agreed bluntly. "Leo-chan's probably going to smash Trish-chan's skull open after he's done with Jay. And then he's going to give me a one-way express ticket to Hell but hey, I heard Lucy's a chill guy. It wouldn't be a bad journey."

She gave him a flat look. He grinned sheepishly back at her. "I'm kidding. So...how about you leave this party? Let them do their thing." He alighted his hands on her shoulders and spun her in a different direction with a fox-like grin on his face.

Going along with Kieran honestly sounded better than staying here and waiting for Leon to come after her next. But the male in question had other plans. He noticed the two moving away from the corner of his vision and rage refilled his face once more. He dropped Jaehyun's limp body and crossed the distance between them in two quick bursts, seizing the white-haired male's upper arm and ripping him away from the (h/c)-haired girl. How dare he touch her with his dirty hands?

"Sorry, but you weren't invited," Kieran grinned up at the furious male, not batting an eye even in the face of danger. "She doesn't like aggressive guys. You can't be too forward, Leo-chan~"

"Don't f*cking call me that!" Leon snarled. "That's not my f*cking name!"

"Ah, still touchy about the nickname, hmm?" Kieran pretended to tap his chin in thought as if he wasn't being held by the collar in a bone-crushing grip. "What about mutt? You're almost like a puppy trailing our dear (Y/n) around. It would've been hilarious if it wasn't so pathetic—"

"Shut UP!"

He sent a powerful punch into the other boy's cheek and the room echoed with the impact. He rained blow after blow, not stopping even when his knuckles began to tear and his skin began to bleed. Kieran fought back to the best of his ability. He even managed to break free at one point and land several solid hits that definitely broke Leon's arm, but that didn't stop the raging six-and-a-half-foot male from continuing his assault, broken arm or not.

"I'll kill you," Leon snarled. "I'll f*cking murder you and everyone else in this f*cking place!"

Everyone...else?

(Y/n) didn't know what happened next. All she remembered were bits and pieces, and the great black wave that rose up to crash over her. Then she remembered faces—angry faces, astonished faces, and scared faces. She remembered it all like she was watching a movie and it had happened to someone else that wasn't her.

But when she looked down, it was her hands that were stained red.

Her attacks came irregularly. They always had a trigger and most of the time, that trigger was always linked to her dearest ones. The first one this year was because of Reese and the second one also because of him. The thought of anything bad happening to him and the others made her throat choke up and hyperventilate.

And so she surrendered herself to that sea of chaos.

UNKNOWN:DIRECTORY ━━━━━༻ ❀ ༺━━━━━ tωσ dαуѕ ℓαtєя

"The trial?"

"It's over. She's guilty. But because she was declared legally insane, she can't be locked up in a normal prison."

"So the institute then?"

When she woke up, she was in a room devoid of any color. A pure white room. She blinked groggily at the white lights that shone down at her. Where am I?

She tried to turn her head to look around but soon found that she couldn't. When her arms and legs also refused to move, having been held down by something, pain flooded her senses and her mind cleared up instantly.

She'd been strapped down to a hospital bed. Like an animal.

What the hell?! (Y/n) tried getting out of her restraints but after five good minutes of struggling, she gave up. It was useless; she wasn't going to get out of the bed on her own anytime soon. Hundreds of questions bombarded her. Questions about where she was, what she was doing here, what had happened to her and the P4. Yet there was no one there to answer them.

Soon that would change. The door opened. The room had no windows or decoration—only a bed in the middle of the room with a light built into the ceiling overhead. The only exit was the steel door. And when it opened, it brought in her worst nightmare.

She didn't have to think very long to match a name to his figure.

Professor Kim. The man in white.

But he wasn't alone. Her eyes widened as she watched a familiar redhead trailed along behind him, his voice bright and boyish just as she remembered. She began struggling and calling for him, trying to tell him who the man really was, and to get him to get out of there, but her mouth had been gagged. He noticed her movements but instead of growing worried like she thought he would, he only smiled.

Her heart froze. Reese...?

"So, this is my best friend, (Y/n) White," Reese was saying as he closed the door behind him. The two made their way to her bed with Professor Kim stopped a good distance away. "She's pretty stubborn, you know. But aside from all that, she's a really good person. Wouldn't even hurt a fly...at least, that's what I thought."

She stared up into his emerald eyes, hers brimming with confusion. What is he talking about? Reese, why are you just standing there? What happened?!

"Never hurt a fly?" Professor him said in a dubious tone, or at least, as dubious as his robotic voice would allow him. "The trial's over. The patient was proven guilty. Guilty of manslaughter, in fact."

(Y/n) felt a chill crawl down her spine. Man...slaughter? Do they mean...me?

"Well, I didn't think she'd do that either," Reese said with a sad sigh. "Those guys were total d*cks, to be fair." He returned his attention to the wide-eyed female and smiled sadly. "Sorry, (N/n), I tried to help you. But not even I can beat the law."

W-what?

"Looks like the patient is in a state of confusion," Professor Kim wrote something down on his clipboard. "I will be monitoring her from now on to see if there are any more psychological changes."

"Of course, Professor," Reese said cheerfully. He affectionately smoothed her bangs over her forehead, his expression unfaltering even as she tried to speak to him with muffled sounds. "Take care of her, will you? She is my best friend, after all."

The man sighed and muttered something about foolish sentiments before walking away. Once he was out of earshot, a dark smile replaced the redhead's crooked one, taking (Y/n) by surprise. A twinge of fear entered her heart as he leaned down towards her ear.

"You're probably super confused right now, (N/n), aren't you?" He whispered huskily. "Makes sense, especially since you don't remember anything that happened two days ago."

She blinked rapidly. Two days? Was I sleeping for that long?

"To put it simply, the P4 is dead." A look of absolute bliss passed over his face as he uttered those words. "And they think you killed them. Or at least, that's what the court thinks. You wanna know what really happened?"

He caressed her cheek softly, the action striking a strange note of anxiety into her chest. Which was strange, because this was Reese. She had no reason to be afraid...right?

"You do, don't you?" The redhead giggled. "When I arrived, you guys were all unconscious, but they weren't dead. I was the one who dealt the final blow, you know. And I was the one who told the authorities you were the one who did it. You wanna know why?"

His nails dug into her skin painfully, making her let out a muffled whimper. "Because you didn't follow my rules." His expression turned from loving into one of maniacal rage. "If only you've remained as dense and naive as you normal were, none of this would've happened. But no, you just had to try and befriend other people, the P4 no less. I had created the perfect world for you but you wanted more."

"You were greedy, (N/n), and now you have to pay for it."

Tears pricked her eyes and a stray bead rolled down her face at his words. Her heart was hammering in her chest and she tried to shake her head, maybe to deny his words, but the restraints didn't let her. He watched the change in her demeanor with an unflinching gaze. The anger and tension evaporated from his body to be replaced by love.

"Hmm? What's that look on your face? You look like you're looking at some kind of monster...but don't misunderstand, (N/n). I love you. I always have, always will. I needed an excuse to take you away to a place where no one will be able to find you ever again, and this is my ticket."

"This is perfect." A dark chuckle escaped his lips as he held her face between his hands. His entire body was on the bed at this point, trapping her underneath him. "You'll only have to be here for a day or two, so don't worry about that. Then I'll come for you and we'll go to another country under a new name with a new life. Ahh...just thinking about it makes me so excited!"

He pressed his forehead to hers and his eyes fluttered shut. A light pink blush was dusted across his cheeks. "Spending the rest of our lives together, just you and me. We'd have all of eternity to become the perfect family, unless you don't want kids, that's fine with me too. And even if you die, I'll find you in the next lifetime. Then we can be together forever then too!"

(Y/n) wanted to scream. This wasn't Reese—no, this wasn't the Reese she knew. The Reese she knew would never do something like this. He was everything she wasn't. Innocent, happy, whole, and most of all, not broken. He had a family. A loving father and a loving mother. And even a brother—

A brother...?

"Oh, did you finally remember?" Reese smiled and pulled back just a little to place some space between their faces. He didn't remove his hands from her face. "You're a bad, bad person, (N/n). You say your friends are everything to you but you forgot about one of them." An unhinged smile danced on his lips as he began chuckling. "My brother, that annoying pest! He kept getting in our way again and again and you!"

He glared into her teary eyes. "You dared to say that out of the two of us, you liked playing with him better. Even though I was the better twin. We're supposed to be the same—we were twins, after all—but he kept getting ahead of himself. It wasn't fair. We were supposed to share."

"So I killed him. And I took his place."

The memories hit her like a car crash. It weighed down on her, threatening to crush her, as images of the younger her hand-in-hand with a pair of twin redheads frolicked carelessly in a park. Their parents were chatting idly and snapping photos of their children while crooning about how cute they were like the doting parents they were. Instead of breaking her even more, those memories were the last icefall to freeze her heart over and cast it into the shadows.

Sometime during their exchange, Professor Kim had left the room so now they were alone. Reese began laughing louder at the sight of the horror on her tearstained face. "Are you scared? You should be! This is what happens when you try to defy me. I've controlled every part of your life until now, from the friends you make to the school you go to, but you just had to let me down this time. So it's all your fault they died. They didn't have to, but you disobeyed me."

"Not that it matters anymore. In just two days you'll only be mine. Just two measly days. It's nothing compared to the ten long years I've waited patiently for you. Hey, aren't you proud of me? Aren't you impressed? I'm not normally a patient person but I've been waiting this long, just for you."

He pressed his lips to her forehead. "And I'll never stop. I'll never leave you." He reached behind her head and undid the clasp that was connected to the cover over her mouth. "Even when time catches up to us...I'll be with you."

But right before he could claim her lips for his own, a new voice rang out in the silent space, a voice both of them knew very well.

"I don't think so, Grayson."

His head snapped up away from hers, confusion, shock, and fury raging simultaneously on his features. "What—you—" He spluttered, unable to form a complete sentence through his clashing emotions. (Y/n) broke out of her shock to look over to what Reese was glaring at and her eyes widened.

The redhead finally managed to collect his thoughts. "You should be dead!"

Tristan smiled maliciously. "Should I? Perhaps. But am I?" He took a step closer. "You'll have to find out for yourself."

Before Reese could say anything else, another voice interrupted him. "Gah, I'm never sleeping on the floor again," the newcomer whined. "My shoulders hurt~ How about yours, Leo-chan?"

The redhead watched with a horrified look as one after the other, four unmistakeable figures filed into the austere room. First came Tristan, his leg in a cast. Followed by Kieran with his trademark smirk. Then came Jaehyun who no longer wore a borderline insane smile, now looking like a harmless rabbit. And lastly, Leon, no longer furious and now blank-faced.

"Woah, kinky." Kieran's eyebrows lifted when he saw the state the (h/c)-haired girl was in. "I've never really talked to you, Reese-kun, but if you're into sh*t like this, we might have to change that."

Tristan shot him a disgusted look. "Now is not the time for that."

Ignoring him, Kieran winked at the confused female. "You look cute no matter what you wear, princess."

Rage was the only cloak Reese wore. It lighted up his fiery green-fire orbs like a bonfire, burning away his mask of docility. His fingers curled into fists around the black material that had covered the lower half of (Y/n)'s face. He crushed it in his grip, waves of pure anger rolling off her as his blood hammered in his veins. The word "anger" was not enough to describe what he was feeling at the moment. The term was a mere ember in the roaring inferno that consumed him.

He wanted to shout back but he knew it was futile. It was a one against four situation and one of the four was Leon Matthews. He wouldn't be able to win. His mind knew this even as his heart screamed out against him. This time, he chose to listen to his mind. Even as he'd fervently deny it, his mind worked a lot like Tristan's. Always plotting, always patient. That was how he's gotten through all these years by his beloved's side without succumbing to the urge to kidnap her away once and for all.

Reese was a picture of defeat and the P4 knew that. Kieran and Jaehyun sped past him immediately towards the (h/c)-haired girl to free her. The redhead's fists tightened but he remained motionless. Leon followed suit, patting the boy once on the shoulder before joining the other three.

Tristan moved to follow but he stopped next to the redhead. And then he smiled.

"You know, if you had acted sooner, you might've been successful. We never would've met her. But you messed up and now you can spend the rest of your pathetic life alone. She's ours now."

Those cruel words in the equally cruel tone the male had dished them out in were the final blow. Reese could no longer contain his anger and spun around, his expression twisted into a world-ending fury as he pulled his fist back and aimed to throw it into the male's smug face.

It never landed. Leon caught his attack in his hand before it could land on Tristan and quickly twisted the redhead's arms behind him.

"You've all only known her for a few weeks—a month at most!" Reese snarled as he thrashed, trying to free himself from the black-haired male's tight grip. Even Kieran had to join in to fully restrain him. "While I was there for all the stages of her life. I was there when she was angry or hurt, when she was happy or afraid—I was the only one who remained true to her and stayed by her side her entire life. I will not allow you to take her away from me!"

"Good thing I was never a sucker for rules," Kieran purred. "The more you hate something the more I'd want to do it."

Tristan rolled his eyes. "Although I do not approve of the way he finds entertainment in the strangest things, I do agree with him. Who are you to order me around?"

Reese was forced into a kneeling position by the two, though even that wasn't enough to quench the fire burning in his gaze. In the background, Jaehyun helped (Y/n) off the bed and murmured words of comfort to her as she stumbled, still a little drowsy from the drugs in her system.

"Remember who your father is and who I am," the blue-haired male continued coolly. "Hunter Grayson, was it? He's the vice headmaster, is he not? It would be so simple for me to remove him, one way or the other. So choose, Grayson. Your family, or (Y/n)?"

The redhead's jaw worked as he tried to come up with a response. Normally he'd choose (Y/n) in a heartbeat but if he did, they'd kill him. Right there, right then. And then he'd have no chance of getting her back every again. As long as he remained alive, he'd never stop searching for her.

Even if they were the ones to get her now, the future was murky. There would always be opportunities for him to strike and reclaim what has always belonged to him.

He lowered his head in defeat. "...F*ck you," he growled. "You're not going to win next time."

Tristan's smile widened. "We'll see about that." He jerked his chin for the two to let go of the redhead, and they did. Reese gave the (h/c)-haired girl one last longing look before his expression hardened and he left the room, slamming the door behind him as he did so.

Kieran turned to the intellectual in confusion. "Why did you let him go? I thought you were going to kill him. Isn't that your thing? Remove the seed before it can sprout?"

"Quite the opposite, actually. Isn't it more interesting if I let him live?" The blue-haired male's eyes lingered on the door where the redhead had been seconds ago before tearing his gaze away. "He's the sort who'd rather die than be parted from her. Therefore killing him would be futile. Isn't it crueler to let him live knowing he'd never get the chance to see her again?"

"You tell me off all the time when you're worse than I am. What a hypocrite."

Tristan ignored him and turned his full attention to the (h/c)-haired girl. His eyes narrowed at the sight of Jaehyun's hand on her waist but he said nothing of it. "Are you alright, my dear? It must be frightening being implicated in something you didn't do."

(Y/n) blinked rapidly. She opened her mouth but her throat was hoarse. Leon was at her side with a water bottle in an instant, which she graciously accepted.

"I-I'm okay," she managed to say. "But Reese said..." She trailed off.

"That we were dead?" Jaehyun began to giggle. "No way, we were pretending. He didn't have the chance to stab each of us individually since the cops were on their way."

"That doesn't matter anymore." Tristan walked up to them and held her chin between his fingers. He turned her face and inspected her for any visible injury. When there were none, he breathed a sigh of relief.

She stepped away from his touch and pried Jaehyun's hand off her. This isn't the situation I was exactly hoping for... "Um, thanks for getting me out of there. I'm fine now—"

"Are you?" Suddenly, his gaze felt like they were icicles stabbing into her. "You look calm. That's strange. I'd expect you to be fighting and trying to escape. Or...did you think we've come to save you?"

Not once in her stay at the Tempus Dormitory had Tristan lifted his hand against her. The only one who'd promised her bodily harm was Jaehyun. And the others, while they had their issues, still showed her their twisted form of concern. Yet...why did she feel so fearful for her life all of a sudden?

Tristan laughed at the look on her face. "You're rather foolish, my dear. Why would we go through all this trouble to save you? Don't get ahead of yourself—I have no qualms with teaching you your place, a lesson you sorely need."

Her blood chilled as she heard the sound of metal scraping on metal. There had been a table of surgical instruments behind her bed out of her field of vision.

"Well then, shall we get started?"