“Your—your boyfriend?” 

Sitting on the mattress where a bloody blanket was being laid, Joross replied in his trembling tone. “Uhm, yes. My boyfriend.” With his jaw jutting out into an underbite, he shot his gaze past Well to avoid seeing his eyes. It was a total awkwardness, the two could feel it. “Whatever it is that you’re thinking, it’s all true. You don’t really have to keep your words, though. You can say them if you want, I’m used to everyone saying the same thing anyways.”  The dropping of Joross’ shoulders went in-sync with the shrinking of his lips. 

Well waved his hands rapidly before him. “No, not that I’m judging you. I’m just, you know, a little bit shocked.” He then withdrew them back. 

“We’re not the typical type of gay couple, for your information. We are unique. And I hate it. Only if we were not, he might have stayed alive today.” 

“I am so, so sorry for your loss. I really mean it!" Well sighed. He wanted to comfort his new friend, but he was a socially awkward person and he did not know what to react when involved in situations like this."But you don’t have to worry as well. I am not the typical type of friend, too. I could understand you better than others.” Well said with a rueful smile. 

The sigh Joross had pumped out was so strong that it blew all the cigarette butts out of the porcelain ashtray. They scattered all over the blanket, some even peppered on to the strange paintings that never in the first few minutes they were exposed had caught a part of Well’s attention. “Fuck,” was the only word Joross had said as his throat bulged out after he swallowed. “I forgot there was an ashtray on here. Mess up big time.” 

“Now that you’re talking about it, why is it even there in the first place? And what are the rest of these things?” Well aimed his palm to the bed, biting his lower lip to ease the unsettling feeling he had after seeing all the assets on the blanket. 

“Sit and I’ll serve you the tea.” 

With the counterpane seemingly saturated with blood, Well swithered before sitting. He sniffed, and though his nose wasn’t really strong in picking up odors, he was still able to get a whiff of the putrid smell of the sanguine fluid in which, according to him was no difference to the smell of an old rusty metal paperclip. 

“What? Does the smell bothered you that much?” Joross looked up, planting both of his arms on the bed to support his back as he leaned. “C’mon. Ignore it. It’s all fine and dry. Remember that this room is a crime scene, and I am acting as the detective. It’s part of my job not to change anything in here—including these bloody covers,” he explained, po-faced. 

Well ensconced himself, facing Joross on the opposite side of the bed. “What’s with these paintings? Why are they all identical?” Well was psyched. He just saw eight exact copies of the same painting painted in uniform size of canvas, occupying the spaces on the bed while putting on view atop the blanket. 

Each of the painting was like a photocopy of the other. They are so much similar; it had a faceless figure holding a bloody knife on its right while clenching a demon’s head (the same demon found in the painting of Joross in his apartment) on its left. It was a very cryptic subject, something that a normal artist wouldn’t paint for no reason. 

“These are the paintings painted by Demo days before he was slaughtered,” Joross admitted in his muffling tone. “I must say, he was a good painter. Art was his life. He was my best mentor.” 

“You mean, he taught you this whole thing?” 

“Not only this. He also taught me how to express feelings and convey messages through paintings. We were good friends back then since our freshmen year.” Joross halted for a short while, his smile telling he was trying to play a memory in his head. “That’s why when he introduced arts to me, it became our hobby. And it didn’t really surprised me when it also became the reason why we ended up together,” he told furthermore. 

“That’s so cool. It must have been great painting together during your pastime.” 

“There’s no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Those were the best moments we ever had.” 

“Then… How come he ended up dead? Any leads?” Well lifted three paintings and moved them to the edge of the bed. He then slid closer to Joross. 

“I’m afraid there’s none. These are all that’s left during the crime scene. However, it’s all nothing but a Catch-22.” Joross almost cried, but it seemed like he was an expert in holding back his tears. 

“Terrible! He died without leaving any signs.” 

“That’s not true,” Joross answered back not a second after Well had his words. “A week before his death, I suspected behavioral changes in him.” Joross stood up and reached for the cabinet next to the bed. He opened one of its drawers, and took out four canvas in different sizes. “These are some of his paintings. He used to paint in vibrant colors, and his usual theme is about suburb living and nature. He never really painted something that’s dark and spooky. He never even use black paint in any of his artworks.” After flashing Demo’s paintings before Well, he then returned them to the drawer where they came from. He left it slightly opened, and didn’t bother to close it at all. He slouched back to his place and continued. “But during his last week, he was different. He painted the same painting once every day.” 

Well had his hand running down his pale and sweating face. “That gives me so much chills. I don’t get it! Why would he paint the exact same painting eight times? I assume it wasn’t some sort of a commission, was it?” By the time Well said this, he was already soaked to the skin. 

“I’m with you in that question. But they’re not really exactly the same as the other. If you have noticed, the color of the blood covering the knife is slightly different for each one.” Joross gathered all of the eight canvas from the bed and placed them one by one on the floor. “There it is. You get what I mean?” 

Well rose to his feet and walked two steps so he’d be standing next to the paintings. “Holy shit!” He cursed upon realizing. “I haven’t noticed this earlier. The blood in each  of the painting really varies from each other! But what could be the meaning of this?” 

“I don’t  know. But I’m considering it as a hard nut to crack. A puzzle, a riddle, or whatever hell that is. Sure enough it’s something related to his death.” Joross went back sitting. 

“White, scarlet, emerald green, aquamarine, lavender... It’s all Greek to me, but why?” Well scratched his jaw. 

“I noticed him doing this during his remaining days—you know, painting weird stuff. But when I would ask him a question regarding to it, he would just ignore me. Truth to be told, he ignored me the entire week. And that’s as sure as the eggs are eggs.” 

“That’s crazy. Why in the world would he ignore you?” 

“I—I don’t know. Maybe because I pissed him off?” Joross shrugged. 

“But that’s absurd!” Well snapped back remorsefully. 

Joross nodded. There’s a tremble in his voice as he spoke. “I know. But that’s not the only thing that’s strange.” He swallowed thrice—and it wasn’t as easy as he thought it would be. He felt like he was swallowing a stone, and in each swallow he would make, the stone would get bigger and bigger. Thank heavens he was able to get used to it right away and continued saying further. “He skipped going into his classes the entire week, too.” 

“Don’t you think someone was behind this?” Well said, finally back to his calm self. 

“Of course, there has to be someone who’s responsible for this.” At this certain point, Joross’ anti-tears medicine had reached its period of effectiveness. Before he could even prevent them, the tears already stumbled down his cheeks and there’s no stopping the waters. Admitting his defeat, he resumed, “But it can’t be the upclass.” 

“Sorry. The what?” 

“Upclass. It’s the term we use to call those who are ahead of us. We don’t really use ‘Seniors’ here.” Joross explained. 

“So, your boyfriend was an upclass? What was his name again?” Well asked. 

“Demo. Demo Noel. Yes, he was my upclass. This opening, he’s supposedly going to his fourth year while I’m turning to my third. He was one year ahead of me.”  

“Maybe one of his classmates could have done this. Why don’t you try investigating them?” Well suggested, though he already knew it won’t do any good. 

“As I said, it can’t be any of them. The upclass are all good. Swear to the stars, none of them was a black sheep. And… They just love Demo so much. They joined student council together, they studied together, they even participated in various contests together. They are all so pure that I would feel so guilty if I put their names on the blacklist,” Joross protested, shaking his head at fixed intervals. 

Well brought down his curtain for a while, silencing himself to think of a better response to Joross’ words. Unluckily, there’s nothing inside his head except for the foggy and blurry images of Demo’s painting. They were lurking in there, like midnight thieves waiting for the perfect time to attack and rule over his mind. He couldn’t erase them. There’s no erasing them. Well told himself that it was all nothing but a mere afternoon terrors—but the more he would make himself believe of such thing, the clearer the images inside his head would become. He became so focused into getting rid of them, that he forgot Joross was beside him waiting for his mouth to crack open. 

When Joross noticed that Well had seemingly lost all of his senses, he called him. “Well?” 

But there was no response. He called again. He kept calling his name over and over but there wasn’t  any signs of back talk. He never heard a thing from him. He just dripped with sweat; they ran from his forehead down to his nose, down to his neck, and down to every inch of the skin of his chest. 

Joross was left with no choice but to tap Well’s shoulders. “Hey! What’s wrong?” 

Well fliched, snapping out of his terrors. “I’m sorry. It’s just—” He gasped for air, but all he got was the foul smell of time-old blood filling every bit of the space inside. He attempted to lift his left hand, but right before he could even take it off of the blanket, he accidentally swiped the ashtray away—causing it to fall down to the floor and break into pieces. “Holy shit!” 

Joross quickly knelt down. “I’ll help you.” 

“No, no. I got this.” 

Well carefully picked up all the scattering smithereens on the floor. He was so heedful not to prick himself with a broken piece of the porcelain. To make sure not a single fragment was left, he delved into the underside of the bed. He looked for any broken piece of the porcelain ashtray there, and thankfully  there was none. However, there was this black pouch tied with white ribbon which attracted Well’s eyes before he could recover from kneeling. He reached for it, and when he finally got it in his hand, he felt something soft and slimy. “Look what I found.” Though he felt a little weird sensation as he squeezed the pouch, Well still handed it to Joross. “This must be one of your boyfriend’s property.” 

“Maybe,” Joross answered as he received the pouch. “Let’s see what’s inside.” 

Things were already messed up and strange. But when they loosened the white ribbon to open the pouch, it all just got worse. Wel l threw up. Joross cried. Why? 

It’s simply because the pocket contained a tongue inside.