Nagi Seishiro

Nagi and I were inseparable since childhood. I always treated him like a little brother: I spoiled him, carried him on my back when he was too lazy to walk, hugged him every time we saw him, and spent hours kicking a ball around with him on the field. He was the closest person to me, and I sincerely believed that this affection was simply our strong friendship.

But something had changed lately. Whenever I'd start talking to anyone else, Nagi would become suspiciously quiet. And then something strange would happen: people I'd interacted with would simply disappear from my life. Some would move, some would suddenly change schools, some would simply stop communicating. I chalked it up to coincidences until I went to visit him.

Nagi wasn't home, and feeling at home, I decided to go into his room to wait. The door was ajar.

When I walked in, my insides turned cold. The walls of his room had become some kind of crazed altar. Photos of me hung everywhere—those we'd taken together, and those he'd apparently taken secretly. Each photo of me was thickly covered with hearts and declarations of love, scrawled in a shaky hand. But that wasn't the worst part. In every photo where there was someone else with me, the other people's faces had been roughly crossed out with black marker, and deep, jagged razor marks appeared over them.

The air in the room grew heavy, making it hard to breathe. I stepped back, feeling nausea rising in my throat. This wasn't friendship. This was obsession.

I rushed out into the hallway, nearly tripping, and then froze. Nagi stood right in front of me. He didn't look surprised. His gaze, usually sleepy and lazy, was now frighteningly clear and cold. He slowly turned his gaze to the open door of his room, and then back to me.

A barely noticeable, almost gentle smile appeared on his lips, which sent shivers down my spine.

"You saw everything, didn't you?" His voice was quiet, almost gentle. "So now you don't have to pretend you don't understand why they all left. Now you belong only to me."