Cruelty or Just Bad Luck

                                    

                                          
           
                          
We obtained permission from the all bones and business housing president to set up cameras and the like in the room where Joe was murdered. His roommate, who had been out visiting family, was more than happy to accept a new room when he returned. In the mean time, we signed an agreement that none of his belongings would be touched, though the forensics team looked as though they had already done plenty of peeking.

                          
Naru and I didn't speak to each other. There wasn't really any need to. We knew our jobs and we did them. Lin had never been much of a talker, and Yasu was more than busy asking questions of all the residents, which, being boys, were more fascinated than shaken that someone had been murdered in their midst. If only I could adopt such levity. 
                          
Before I knew it, however, it was almost one in the morning, Yasu had turned in with the rest of the residents, and I was left with a groggy Lin and Naru in a monitor lit room. Feeling cold and numb, and since most of the dorm was unconscious, I figured I'd take my chance to take a long shower to thaw myself for bed. I didn't bother telling Naru where I was going. And why should I? I had done my job, and I was an adult, after all. I didn't need a supervisor.
                          
The boy's bathroom facilities had shower stalls, thank God. I had this horrible vision of a tree of life sort of shower, but the stalls had thick, plastic blue curtains. I flung my towel and pajamas over the curtain rod and stepped in before stripping. The bland white lights reflecting off of all the white tile hurt my eyes. The water came out fast and too hot. I hissed. Stepped in. Then melted onto my haunches with a sigh, hugging my shampoo bottle to my breasts. It had been a while since I'd felt this weary. 
                          
Closing my eyes against the white, I allowed myself to settle into the hurt. Naru and I...was it even a good idea for us to get married? We fought so often, and if I was going to be this overly sensitive, how would he handle it? Wouldn't I just end up annoying him till he fell out of love with me completely? On that thought, why did he even like me?
                          
I sniffed and snapped open my shampoo. As I did so, the solitaire diamond in my engagement ring glittered in the light. I turned my hand, watching it dance, before turning back to my shampoo. Foam and bubbles slapped onto the tiles and down the drain.
                          
How many times would we have to say sorry to each other? How many times until we fell out of love? 
                          
Aching, I hummed a soothing tune to myself, one that I hadn't sung in a long while, as I hadn't needed to. It was a lullaby my mother sang, one which I hummed incessantly after she died in order to not lose myself in the darkness before sleep. I couldn't say I was much of a singer, but I could hold a tune as well as the next person, and it was just me and the suds to hear. 
                          
It worked. I was soothed. And drain.
                          
I yawned as I shaved, scrubbed, brushed my teeth, and finished up. I kept up the hum of mother as I turned off the shower, dried off, and slipped on my oversized T-shirt and pajama pants that I had finally managed to get Naru to buy for me. 
                          
On opening the curtain, I found that I wasn't alone in the bathroom.
                          
Swii's pale face smiled in a wan, empty glass sort of way. "Sorry. I couldn't help but listen. I swear I'm not a creep." And as though to verify this, he lifted up his toothbrush and toothpaste. 
                          
I shrugged and rubbed my eyes. To be honest, I didn't much care if he had been a creep. I was too tired. Too morose. 
                          
"I'm so sorry. About your friend," I said. "We're doing everything we can to help in the investigation."
                          
He echoed my shrug and his empty smile fell away. "That's why I couldn't help but listen. Something tells me this sort of thing isn't new to you. Death, that is."