The recent murder had been in the news for most of the morning.  Of course, they hadn’t shown most of the crime scene since the police were keeping the reporters out of the building.  However, they had the victims’ neighbours to question even if they couldn’t get pictures of the blood.  The fact that the killer was still at large, and that no one seemed to have seen or heard anything to form some sort of profile meant that it was unlikely that whoever had murdered that family was going to be caught anytime soon.  The world couldn’t exactly just sit in fear, however, and life still moved on.

Hotaru would have been perfectly happy spending her day of Not-Having-To-Deal-With-The-People-At-School lounging around the apartment playing Mario Kart, but her dad had given her a list of errands to run while he’d been called into work.  [i]What did the office need him for anyway that couldn’t wait until Monday?[/i]  She thought.  Not that he could argue with the higher ups.  She left the apartment shortly after he did after checking to see if she needed to add anything to their grocery list.  

As she walked towards the train station, several imposing looking vehicles passed her.  As well, there were several people in Defense Force uniforms gathering about.  Hotaru figured it just had to do with the recent murders needing increased security, but it was still freaky to see so many of bunched together so close like this.  The news hadn’t mentioned anything that had happened in their neighbourhood, so why were there so many around here?  She didn’t want to seem like she was nosing around their important business, so she hurried along before they could notice her.

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Ueno Station was busy as usual, and Hotaru made that sure her phone was on silent as she moved through the crowd.  The train would still be a while, and she glanced around at the other people around the station.  One person who really stood out was someone she recognised from school; he was a year ahead of her and was in student council and the Captain of the Kendo team.  It seemed as though people were giving him a wide berth, and Hotaru wondered what he was thinking, bringing a sword out in public with everything that’d been going on.

Strange music reached the edge of her hearing over the buzz of the crowd and rumbling of nearby trains.  After checking how much time she still had until the train arrived, Hotaru decided to check it out, passing Nakada-senpai as she went.  She soon found the source, although a large group of people surrounded the musician, and she vaguely noted that they seemed dazed as they listened.  Hotaru could almost see the man despite standing behind everyone.  His flute playing was very skillful, and it was really easy to get sucked in.