when you wake up | sunki

twelve.

Sunoo brings the first page of the file up to Riki that night when they meet at the rooftop. "Do you recognise this?" he asks gently, holding up the insignia. It is the black and white symbol of a knife in blood, supposedly worn on armbands or concealed somewhere on the body by all members of the family, according to Jay's file.

Riki takes the paper, glancing over the pattern printed. In seconds his eyes seem to glaze over and Sunoo leans over, worried.

"Riki, are you-"

Sunoo is barely fast enough to catch his head before it hits the ground behind him.

─

"We're almost home!"

Riki awakens from his drowsy slumber in the back of the car. It's been a long car ride back from the neighbouring city where they'd been for a weekend road trip, and as the clock ticks past midnight he's more than tired.

His father glances back to check on him in the backseat. Konon is asleep beside him and his mother is asleep in the front seat. The ride is silent, but the night sky is beautiful in the view from the sun-roof, and Riki looks up to enjoy the unbroken sky whizzing past at dizzying speed.

Headlights flash from a distance behind them, interrupting his reverie. He's surprised there are people on the inter-city roads this late at night, but then again his family is there too. Riki's father steps on the gas to put some distance between them and the other car, but as he looks back he can't seem to shake the feeling that he's being followed.

As the car speeds past beside them, Riki catches a glimpse of something black, a pattern against the side of the white car. Everything around him moves too fast for him to catch it clearly, but it's the last thing he sees before the impact.

A knife in blood.

The white car fishtails, cutting clean across their path, and the only thing Riki knows is chaos as the car flips over, plunging him into darkness.

─

"I recognised it."

"Holy shit, what?" Sunoo sits up suddenly from where he's lying beside Riki. He'd taken the younger boy back to his apartment since he didn't have Riki's key this time and he didn't know how long he was going to be out cold. "What, what? God, you gave me a fright."

"I recognise the logo," he continues, still in a daze. "Jay's got the right guy. It was them, this-" Riki pushes himself off the bed. "The TSUNAMI-Takahashi Alliance. I remember now. The knife in blood, I saw it the night of the accident Sunoo- I remember it!"

Sunoo is still struggling to shake the sleep from his eyes, but he smiles. The time is 02:43, which means the new day has already started for Riki. He can take the younger boy downstairs in the morning, and confirm what Jay already suspected.

"Sleep now, Riki," he says, forgetting that the younger boy is in his house and not his own, but on his part Riki doesn't seem to care. "It'll be a long day when you wake up."

"Okay. Goodnight, Sunoo."

"Goodnight."