Chapter Text
Of Demons- Chapter 2: [The Fey]
Once upon a time, there was a little boy of around six years old.
He was a kind boy, always remaining strong, no matter what misfortunes happened to him. And many misfortunes did, for this little boy had the worst luck in the world. But the boy remained strong, strong for the people he wanted to protect, and for himself. Yet the misfortunes continued.
However, this little boy did have a gift, a little, shining light in the midst of all the darkness.
He had clear sight.
Now, that sounds unimpressive, but it really was something amazing. This boy not only saw what existed as a thing in his world, he also saw what didn’t exist.
That was, namely, the supernatural. Ghosts, spirits, fey and more. His clear sight was so powerful that nothing, not even the strongest illusion magic, could nullify it. In fact,he could even be considered as a threat to mischief-makers.
In fact, that was indeed what caught the eye of one of the monsters of the night.
One ordinary, dark night, it came tapping against the windowsill, white body glowing in the moonlight, sunken black eyes widened even more with curiosity, and long, pink ears twitching.
It was a sickening creature, one that inspired no fear, but much disgust.
The boy woke up and turned to the windowsill in curiosity, and recoiled from the sight of the ugly creature. After the initial shock, however, he realized that this creature was not here to prey on him.
Tap, tap. The creature would not go away, even after the boy tried to ignore it.
So, the boy walked up to the windowsill slowly, step by step wondering if the creature had a purpose for being here.
He opened his mouth to greet the creature, and—
Something was wrong with that boy.
The more Mika saw him, the more he was sure of it.
The boy in question was, of course, Aoi Hinata, a junior at Mika’s own school, and also his senior at work. Work at a café, in fact, though Mika never really saw the boy much, since he worked in the kitchen, while Mika strived to conquer his own inabilities to communicate with others by becoming a waiter.
How a sixteen-year-old boy managed to be put into the kitchen, he would never know. What he did know, however, was that Hinata always seemed to be hungry.
And whenever he got hungry, something weird happened to the world.
It wasn’t obvious, but it was there.
The distortion.
It wasn’t just any sort of distortion- the whole world seemed to warp and drag around him, as if Hinata was pushing against it and pulling it along as he walked, thin, white strings wrapping around his every limb, as if trying to drag him back. Hinata did not shape the world— the world shaped around him, pushing against him, almost as if it was trying to keep him out, trying to reject and deny him, as it once had done so to Mika himself.
And yet.
There was something about him— Mika had no idea what it was, but no matter how hard the world tried to make him miserable, Hinata never faltered. It should be painful, to have the threads of reality tightly wrapped around your neck, dragging back your every step, leaping at every chance to slow you down— but it was as if Hinata was being protected by all those attacks.
He had been so sure that there was no way Hinata was human, too.
The world rejected all that didn’t belong— anything and everything, and there were no exceptions. It had clearly been trying to reject Hinata’s entire existence, wrapping him in its threads and squeezing, almost as if trying to reduce him to dust—no, it would be more accurate to say that it was trying to reduce him to dust, and yet—
And yet.
If Hinata wasn't human, how was he so… unaffected by everything?
Mika didn't understand.
Really, maybe, he’d never understand.
It was a long time since the time he had been where Hinata was now, after all. He couldn't even remember clearly how he had been released from the threads that held the world together.
It was almost as if the memory had been wiped from his mind. He couldn't imagine the tightening around his neck and chest even if he wanted to, and only with some effort could he remember the scorning gazes of the people around him.
There had been a time where his sleep had been plagued with nightmares about those gazes. But now, he could barely even recall them.
The world was strange.
But Aoi Hinata, Mika thought dully, was stranger.
“Kagehira-chan~? Sorry, I’ve got a dentist appointment in, like, thirty minutes, so could you take over my shift to close up the café? I swear I’ll make it up to you!”
Mika stared dumbly at the woman in front of him, who had clasped her hands together in a gesture of pleading and squeezed her eyes shut, as if bracing herself for his answer.
He started to sweat. He didn't really want to stay back any longer than necessary— going back home earlier meant that he’d be able to see Shu for a longer time, yet he couldn’t bring himself to reject the obviously desperate woman.
“U-uh, Aoi-chan and the manager’ll be here, too!! You won't be closing the shop alone, so..!!” the woman, called Megumi, rushed out, taking his silence for one of skepticality. “Aoi-chan works like an absolute monster, so you won't have to do that much, anyways..!!”
He really wanted to tell her that doing work wasn't the part he minded, but the words wouldn't unstick themselves from his throat.
“O-okay, then,” was the only thing Mika managed to say under all the pressure. “Um, good luck for yer dentist’s appointment..?”
Megumi brightened up immediately, brown hair bouncing as her head jerked from its original bowed position.
“I knew I could count on you, Kagehira-chan!!” she gushed, relief evident in her voice. “I’m so glad you exist! I owe you my life, thank you so so much!”
“L-life?” Surely the situation on her end wasn’t that bad?!
“Yeah! Anyways, I gotta run now, so, uh, text me your next shift and I’ll take over it! Promise!”
He nodded dimly, and raised his hand as a sort of goodbye as he watched Megumi pick up her handbag and rush off.
She was like a storm, that woman. He couldn't understand how her mind worked.
Well, that was an early leave gone. Mika looked over to the big, decorative clock hung on the right wall of the café.
Six-thirty. A whole hour until closure.
He sighed. This was going to be a long shift.
“Thank you for coming!”
As the last customer left the café, a satisfied smile on her face, Mika pulled out a rag from his pocket and hurried over to the sink, getting ready to start cleaning up. The sun had set a long time ago— winter meant short days, after all, and the darkness was slightly unnerving.
He wasn’t a stranger to darkness, but it could be frightening all the same.
“Good work!” the remaining staff members called to their colleagues, all of them looking quite tired, but relieved that the day had ended. Mika couldn’t help but feel the same— there was a reason why he rarely asked for the shifts at the end of the day. In fact, more often than not, he was asking to not be placed there— it was much more tiring and everyone was much more impatient.
While Mika wasn’t exactly the more bad-tempered person out there, even he sometimes wished that time would just speed up. He did, after all, have someone to see back at home.
“Kagehira-kun, could you go over and help out with the kitchen instead of the dining room? Since we want to start putting up our Christmas decorations, we’re getting Minami-kun and Kuroo-san to work in the dining room, so they won’t be able to take care of the kitchen like they usually do,” the assistant manager said, approaching Mika, a wet cloth in hand. “I know you’re pretty good at cleaning and you’re not clumsy, amongst other things, so I trust you to not break anything.”
His cheeks flushed lightly at the compliment and he nodded quickly, hurriedly excusing himself and making a beeline towards the kitchen.
He had been into the kitchen quite a number of times while working, but he had never really bothered to enter it after the cafe closed. While it was usually bustling, with waiters shouting orders and the cooks (or patissieres) preparing the items as fast as they could, after working hours, it was silent.
It was only natural, Mika knew, but it was odd all the same.
It wasn’t empty, make no mistake— in fact, it seemed to be even more cluttered than it had been at the start of Mika’s shift, at around 2pm in the afternoon. Plates were strewn everywhere, the ground was slightly wet, causing his shoes to squelch unpleasantly at times, and there was an alarmingly large-sized pile of cutlery to be washed placed in one of the counters at the corner of the kitchen.
Even then, it just seemed much, much larger without all the hustle and bustle he was used to seeing and hearing whenever he stepped in.
The kitchen was at least still brightly lit, though the fans were off, and there were two staff members diligently scrubbing the kitchen counters wordlessly, absorbed in their chore.
Mika didn’t quite know what to say to them, so he settled for going over to the large pile of cutlery and started to work his way through it, the gush of the tap calming whatever tense nerves he might have had.
He stayed like that for a while, diligently scrubbing all the whipped cream and bread crumbs off each piece of silverware, before his tranquil state was abruptly interrupted by a—
“Kagehira-senpai, do you need some help? Sakuya-san and I are done scrubbing the counters, and he says he doesn’t need any help washing the dishes, so…”
Mika flinched at the sudden interruption, his shoulders jerking up violently. Almost immediately, the threads of the world became visible, the layers of the world suddenly mixing and overlapping.
It was Aoi Hinata. He barely even needed to glance at the boy to see the thin cords of realty winding around his neck and curling around every single limb on his body.
It was disturbing and awkward to look at, and so he politely turned away to look at the knife he had been rubbing with the wet rag for some time, forcing his beating heart to slow down.
“I-it’s fine… I’m more than halfway done anyway, so…” He trailed off, not sure of what to say to get rid of Hinata. “The floor is kinda wet, so maybe—”
God, he was so glad that Hinata was quick to catch on.
“It’ll dry up with some time, though~ It’s not like the floor’s dirty or anything~” the younger boy whined, picking one of the cleaned forks and twirling it around in his fingers before accidentally dropping it. Mika made to catch it in mid-air, but Hinata was faster, scooping it up with his other hand in one smooth motion.
“A~nyways!” Hinata continued, once again twirling the fork cheerily. “Let me help! We’ll get it done faster, anyways!”
Mika willed himself not to inch away from the boy, who had sidled up to his side and was squinting at the sink. Slowly, Mika turned his head and looked down at the boy, who had started cleaning the sink stopper with a sort of intense concentration that Mika didn’t quite understand.
As far as he could see, Hinata seemed to be completely human, and Mika could see quite well. Really, the only strange thing about him was how the world struggled against him—
Wait. What was that hint of black he saw, hidden under Hinata’s collar?
“Hinata-kun, do you…” Mika began, then paused to swallow nervously. After a moment, he continued with, “Do you… have a tattoo?”
Hinata turned to look at him, confusion flashing across his face, and asked him what he had meant. Mika didn’t miss the way his fingers tightened around the sink stopper ever so slightly.
“I thought I saw some kind of marking on your neck,” Mika rushed to explain, praying that he wouldn’t make too big of a fool of himself. “I-I guess it was just a trick of the light, or so—”
“Oh! No, you were right!” Hinata interrupted, suspiciously eager to affirm Mika’s suspicions. “Could you, er, not tell anyone about it? Hasumi-senpai would kill me if he found out.”
The wording made Mika squint in suspicion— and, for some reason, he felt like there was some sense of truth in what the younger boy had said. Well, he did know that the Vice President of the student council was incredibly strict in upholding all the school rules, and angering him usually led to the troublemaker getting a long lecture from the said person.
I shouldn't think too much about it, Mika told himself firmly, shaking his head to get rid of the thought. I shouldn’t think about it too much, but…
Hinata, who had taken his shake of the head as a confirmation not to tell, relaxed immediately, looking rather sheepish, and carefully the sink stopper back in its place.
“Thanks, Kagehira-senpai,” he said, and a smile was forced across his face, hiding a flash of something behind them, something Mika couldn't distinguish, and maybe something he didn’t want to distinguish.
“Yer welcome,” Mika replied, and turned away, not wanting to see the threads of the world dig into the red flesh of the strange boy once again.
“Oshi-san, how do you tell if someone isn’t human?” he asked once, almost dreading the answer.
“What kind of question is that?”
“...Nothin’, I was just curious. You knew I wasn’t human when you first saw me, right?”
“That’s because your third and fourth eyes were quite plain for me to see, Kagehira. Additionally, you had just stolen my baguette. While invisible. Stop asking these kinds of questions.”
Mika found it vaguely amusing that it wasn’t the horns or wings that Shu had noticed, but his eyes.
Shu closed the book he had been reading, pushing the chair away with a loud screeching sound and got up. After a moment, he lifted the chair and brought it back under the table, frowning.
His fingers were slender, Mika couldn’t help but notice, then he flushed slightly at his own embarrassing thoughts and looked away.
“But what if ya hadn’t been able to see my second pair of eyes? Would ya still have been able to tell? I mean, just from my appearance alone, ignoring the whole…” Mika flushed again, remembering how their first meeting had went. “Um… t-the baguette thing…?”
A pause. He could hear Shu’s fingers tapping incessantly on the table as he considered the question.
“Perhaps,” Shu finally replied, turning away, tone thoughtful. “But that may be because I’ve always been able to sense the supernatural, and thus my senses are… heightened, so to speak.”
“Oh.”
Mika took a moment to tear his eyes away from the act of studying Shu’s face before speaking once more.
“Have ya noticed any… weird presences in school, Oshi-san?”
Shu’s gaze flickered briefly over to Mika, before being redirected back to whatever he had been looking at previously—maybe something beyond the window?
“Weird presences… there has always been weird presences in that school, Kagehira. You need to be more specific.”
“L-like—” Mika silently cursed himself for stumbling through the beginning of his sentence, and took a moment to reorganize his thoughts. “Like th’... th’ first year, Aoi Hinata, have ya sensed anything about him…?”
Shu closed his eyes for a second or two, before opening them once more— something of a habit that he had developed recently, that he did whenever he was thinking hard. “Remind me, who is this Aoi?”
“Th’ pink twin. The one who’s always hanging out with Hajime-kun an’ his friends.”
Now that he thought about it, did Shu even know who Hinata was?
Apparently he did, since Shu was slowly nodding— was that anger he saw on his face?
“Ah, yes, the… mischievous one,” the older boy said through gritted teeth, the calm in his voice very obviously forced. “He once put cherry jam on my croissant when I wasn’t looking… Very unfortunate for him, of course, but I’m… glad that I know his name, now…”
It might have been a mistake, bringing Hinata up.
Cherry jam?
Hinata might have been more courageous than Mika had initially assumed.
“His presence, Oshi-san! Presence!” Mika feebly reminded him, the urgent need to change the topic washing over him. He ignored it.
“...Ah, yes. His presence.”
Shu seemed to calm down, even if it was only for a moment, sinking back into thought. After a moment, he replied back with a ‘I’m not too sure’.
Huh. Similar to Mika’s own impression of Hinata… so it hadn’t just been his own senses failing him…?
“Oshi-san, y’ see, Hinata-kun’s working in the same place I am, and he was there today, and—” the words were tumbling nonstop out of his mouth, rushing and overlapping and tripping over each other, and before he knew it, he had practically spilled the whole story of his encounter with Hinata during closing earlier the evening. “He said it was a tattoo, an’ I don’t think it’s impossible, but—”
“Calm down and sort your thoughts before you speak, Kagehira!” snapped Shu, who had sharply turned to look at Mika, curled up on the couch. “If you keep speaking like that, no one will be able to understand you!”
Mika shut up and did just that. A moment later, he spoke again, but this time, his words were carefully, controlled.
“I-it’s makin’ me nervous, Oshi-san… I’ve never seen someone with the world trying to erase their existence, before. There’s something weird about Hinata-kun, and I don’t really want to know what…!”
“World trying to erase their existence…?” The phrase had caught Shu’s attention, and in an instant, he seemed much more attentive than he had before. “Kagehira, explain.”
Had he not explained properly before?
“S-so y’know how I can see the interlocking webs holding up the fabric of [Reality]...?”
A sharp nod.
“Whenever I look at Hinata-kun, I can see some of the threads just… pressing against his skin. Trying to pull him back. M-maybe even trying to strangle him.”
“It’s like he isn’t supposed to exist,” Shu breathed, eyes widening in realization. “That must explain the strange feeling I keep getting from him…”
“Strange feeling? Oshi-san, is what you feel from him different from what you feel from me?”
“You might be able to say that,” Shu admitted, and took a seat next to Mika with a sigh. “For one, yours was poorly obscured, Kagehira, similarly to a cloud covering the sun. It’s not unlikely for someone with the Sight to completely see through the magic that hid your horns and your wings.
But this Aoi… Instead of being hidden like you, his is more similar to being blocked by frosted glass.”
“I… don’t really get it.”
“You don’t have to,” was the light reply. “Kagehira, stop trembling. It’s making the sofa incredibly uncomfortable to sit on.”
“Eh? Uh, okay.”
Wait, how was he supposed to do that?
Shifting uncomfortably under Shu’s pointed stare, Mika decided to just get up and sit on the other couch, and he did just that, slipping the jacket which had hung on the side of the first couch on.
He couldn’t stop thinking about Hinata.
No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t stop. It wasn’t any sort of attraction that was causing the younger boy to slip into his thoughts, no, it was more of—
Fear.
Apprehension.
Doubt.
All those and more, much more, and they never stopped building up against his chest, pressuring his head and eyes, and he could feel it, his carefully controlled vision spinning and overlapping, and oh god what exactly is Aoi Hinata?
He needed to know, in case anything happened, no matter how nervous he was, no matter how much he dreaded the truth, because if anything happened to him, if anything happened to Shu—
“Kagehira!”
“E-eh? Wha’ is it, Oshi-san?”
Something warm pressed against Mika’s forehead, forcing him to lift his head and look up. He stared up at Shu, who had most likely walked over to him while Mika had been zoning out. Slowly, as if in a trance, he lifted up his own arms with the intention to pry the older boy’s palm off his forehead, but he could do no more than just hold it there, eyes locked onto Shu’s face, and—
“O-oshi-san, wha’ are ya doing?!”
Whatever spell that had been cast of Mika suddenly vanished. He flushed, fingers fumbling to pull Shu’s hand away, eyes determinedly searching the room to lock onto anything, anything other than his face.
“Calm down, Kagehira. It’s troublesome if you overthink and ruin your brain cells in the process,” Shu said calmly, his expression firm and betraying no thoughts. “Go wash your face, then go to sleep.”
It was not a request, but a command. Mika lowered his eyes and nodded mutely, and gently slapped his cheek before standing up and making his way towards the bathroom.
Shu was right. There was nothing good that could come out of overthinking.
“I’m hungry~ I didn't eat anything for lunch, so now I’m starving~”
Mika sometimes wished that being what he was came with the power to mute others. It certainly would have come in handy at that moment. Aoi Hinata had been whining about it for an hour straight, and he didn’t know if it was because he had been living with Shu for the past few years, but he really wanted him to shut his mouth.
“Aoi-san, you’ve been saying for the past hour,” one of the cooks working in the café told him mildly, a bead of sweat on her skin glinting. Mika had no doubt she was as tired of the complaining as he was. “Your shift’ll end in an hour or two, so wait for a while longer, okay?”
Hinata sighed loudly, grumbling, and said, “But if I don’t complain about it, I’ll go crazy and eat everything I see!”
I really don’t wanna know how true those words are, Mika thought to himself, shuddering, and bent over to carefully pick up the tray stacked with sweets to deliver to the customers at the café.
For how much Hinata had been complaining, he had still quite diligently did his job, he reflected, staring at the tall parfaits and macarons placed neatly on his tray. The boy was a self-proclaimed ‘sweets connoisseur’, and while Mika doubted he was actually that good regarding sweets, he couldn't help but admire every single meticulously placed sugary bead and star embedded into the white, fluffy whipped cream, which the café’s own staff had made.
When Mika first started working, Hinata had been the one to cheerfully approach him and offer to teach him some tricks in making food look (and taste) good. Soaking apples in salt water would stop discoloration, and the subsequent saltiness of the apples would enhance the sweetness of whatever treat it was paired up with. The trick to whipped cream was a steady hand and undivided attention.
...Now that he thought about it, Hinata might not be normal… in more ways than one.
What kind of scary monster would know so much about sweets? he thought mutely to himself, placing the parfaits down on the table with a nervous but friendly smile. Hinata-kun doesn’t seem scary at all… Really…
But you can’t judge people by how they look.
He knew that the most— that sometimes even the kindest-looking people could be cruel.
...But it wasn’t Hinata’s apparent evilness that was the problem. He lowered his eyes and bowed, sweet smile still on his face, and scuttled back to the kitchen to bring out another order, ignoring how Hinata was once again complaining about how hungry he was. It was only when he heard the same cook suddenly exclaim in shock, did he perk his ears up, pausing in the middle of picking up a tray.
“...too dangerous!” she was saying, hands gesturing wildly. “Aoi-san, you can't!”
“Well, I can’t have Tetsu-kun calling me a wimp, can I?” was the sharp reply, laced with annoyance. “It’s not like it’s cursed…”
“Kagehira!! Don’t make the customers wait for so long, you walnut!!”
“Eh—Huh?!” Mika cried, giving a start and nearly tipping over the contents of the tray. He shrieked, stumbling and staggering about to try to stabilize the sweets that wobbled around dangerously, and finally knocked onto the counter, where his heart managed to calm down and brain had been able to control his hand to adjust the position of the sweets. From the corner of his eye, he could see that the conversation between Hinata and the chef had been abruptly cut off, both staring wide-eyed at him, and he blushed furiously, praying they wouldn’t notice that he had been listening.
Ducking his head, he clutched the tray as if it was the one thing that could save him from the situation, and dashed out of room, cheeks burning.
“Kagehira-senpai! Your shoelace!” A faint call came from behind him, very much amused by the whole situation.
Mika looked down at his shoes to find out that, indeed, his shoelaces were untied. Momentarily forgetting that he was, indeed, holding something, he let go of the tray to bend down to tie it, then shrieked as the tray crashed onto his toes, sweets flung out of the tray and smashing onto the walkway, the shatter of glass echoing down the hall.
“Senpai!!”
“Kagehira-kun!!”
“KAGEHIRA!!”
The clamor of voices left Mika stumbling in a confused daze, head hurting from all the loud yelling, embarrassment rising up in his chest and up his face. It was chaos, not only outside, but inside his head as well. He could barely hear himself blurting out apologies as his seniors and juniors alike rushed to check if he was okay, and some unfamiliar voices belonging to the customers in the café mingled with the worried words that were thrown at him.
Hinata was huffing, coming towards him, a broom and pan in hand, and he was saying something, something like ‘And I thought I was out of it’, a wry smile on his face, and, in Mika’s dazed, confused head—the black mist crawling over his skin couldn’t possibly be anything but a hallucination—he could only think, no, don’t come near me, stay away, don’t touch me—
“Kagehira-chan? Are you okay? You’re, like, super pale.”
Megumi’s voice came almost like a wake-up slap. He snapped back to attention, blinking confusedly, and looked around.
It was quiet. Not silent, mind you, with the dully muted shouts and jolly clamor in the background as everyone in the cafe resumed their work, but all the noise that previously had been pressing against his ears, his mind, was all gone without a trace.
From the corner of his eye, he registered Hinata, a few meters say, dumping the broken shards of glass into the trash can.
“You’re in for a big scolding, Kagehira-chan,” Megumi was saying, a frown on her face. “Did you see the manager’s face just now? It was terrifying!”
“Mnnhyu…” Mika groaned, letting out a strange half-whine, half-wail. “I hope he doesn’t make me stay back….”
“G’luck,” Megumi offered half-heartedly, her expression telling him that she thought that there was no hope.
He sighed, shook his head, bending over to pick up the fallen tray and walked over to the other kitchen staff, apologizing for the ruckus.
He could faintly hear a “Anyways, like I was saying, Tetsu-kun’d kill me if he finds out I didn't go through with that bet…” in the background.
Mika grit his teeth and marched away almost indignantly.
He couldn’t sleep.
It was at least 2 in the morning, and, no matter how tired he felt, he just couldn’t fall asleep. He wasn’t usually like this— on normal days, Mika didn’t take long to nod off, but, for some reason, tonight felt…. ominous.
To put it simply, it felt like a bad idea to lose consciousness.
….Maybe I’ll go get a drink of water. I feel kinda muddled.
Dragging himself out of bed, he gingerly bent down and picked up his blanket, which he had somehow kicked onto the floor. He managed to stumble all the way to his door without tripping or bumping into anything, which was nothing short of a miracle, considering his current state of mind.
Fumbling with the doorknob, Mika managed to twist it and pull it open, rubbing his eyes to clear his vision. Not wanting to risk Shu waking up, he avoided flipping the light switch and blindly made his way downstairs to the kitchen.
It wasn’t until he finished pouring the water into a glass that he heard it.
A strangled cry, coming from upstairs.
Oshi-san…!
The glass smashed onto the floor in less than a second, contents spilling out and pooling around the furniture, abandoned completely as Mika desperately sprinted up the flight of stairs, heart thudding loudly in his ears.
Waking Shu up was the least of his problems. He grabbed the door knob and wrenched the door open, a loud slam echoing throughout the house as it crashed against the wall, but nothing could overpower the thundering of his heart.
…….ah.
What he saw was—
“....Who…?”
A harsh, raspy voice, but somehow familiar.
“You…!”
He couldn’t force the words out of his throat. He didn’t know where to look, and no matter where he looked, it was just black, black and black.
A monster, wrapped by darkness, stood in front of him— no, standing was not the right word. It was bent around Shu, who was fidgeting restlessly on the bed, very obviously sweating. It was hard to see the actual form of the monster— wispy black mist-like substances whirled around its body, and even it’s eyes, which reflected the light from the window just a little, were black.
Upon closer inspection, however, a rather… humanlike form seemed to be hidden under the blackness.
That was more terrifying than anything else.
“.....Fey. No… Changeling.”
It was spoken like a warning, and Mika stiffened. How, with just one look, could this monster tell what he was?
“What…” he managed to force out, unable to tear his eyes from the monster. “What… have you done with Oshi-san…?!”
He couldn’t see it’s face, but he was sure the monster was staring daggers at him.
Slowly, carefully, it removed itself from Shu’s side, the black mass shifting to the side ever so slightly. It didn’t bother to reply Mika’s question, turning slightly to push open the window that it was near to.
...Was that a… human hand?
It leaped onto the window sill, black mist almost eerily still even though the breeze entered the room, gently blowing against Mika’s face.
“......”
Without another word, it disappeared, and no trace of the black, swirling mass was left.
“Wha…”
His knees buckled, and he collapsed helplessly onto the floor, pale.
What….
What was that?
Once upon a time, there was a little boy of around six years old.
He was a kind boy, always remaining strong, no matter what misfortunes happened to him. And many misfortunes did, for this little boy had the worst luck in the world. But the boy remained strong, strong for the people he wanted to protect, and for himself. Yet the misfortunes continued.
However, this little boy did have a gift, a little, shining light in the midst of all the darkness.
He had clear sight.
One ordinary, dark night, it came tapping against the windowsill, white body glowing in the moonlight, sunken black eyes widened even more with curiosity, and long, pink ears twitching.
And it was on a night, just like this one, that the boy, looking up at the strange little creature, took his last breath and died.