Chapter Text
Yasutora loved animals. Big ones, small ones, the medium ones right in between, ugly ones, and cute ones. Furred, feathered, scaled, and even hairless. Even when the rage of youth had burned at its brightest, threatening to incinerate even himself, Yasutora had always held a bit of softness in his heart for animals.
Yasutora didn’t fight anymore. Not for himself, at least. That’s what he stuck to, the rules, the morals his Abuelo had fashioned for him, since the dawn of manhood.
Why did they have to hurt that kitten?
Yasutora sat under a bridge beneath a foreign sky, deadened concrete above, closing in on him, suffocating him with its pure lack of life, clutching the sticky-soft remains of a poor innocent soul who’d had the rotten luck of being a stray or being the runt that wasn’t fast enough. Pure white fur was stained by sticky, stark blood.
Why did they have to hurt the kitten?
Yasutora gently sat the corpse down and began tearing at the ground with his hands, never mind the gravel, never mind the blood, the pain, the scratches. The sun moved overhead with aching slowness, shining on despite the tragedy.
A sick, hollow feeling settled in Yasutora’s heart. It chilled his body from his scalp to his toes even though sweat gathered from the humidity and ran down his skin in bloody rivulets.
Finally, he finished and lowered the broken little body, still soft and warm into the grave. He bowed his head and thought a prayer, begging for something. An easier time in death than life for the little cat, maybe. He threw the first fistful of gravel mixed soil. Many more followed until the hole was filled. Yasutora murmured another prayer.
Head lowered, Yasutora began the walk home, wrapping his dark jacket around him and leaving the bodies where they were. Let them suffer the indignity of an improper burial. They deserved nothing better.