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“Why am I the only one–!” Kou’s desperate cry is cut off by his brother, expertly disarming Kou. Of course Teru would be able to do that, it’s a wonder that Kou made it so far in the first place. He knows he will never be as strong as his brother. Yet he still chases after this impossible dream, reaching for his raiteijou, for the small chance that maybe, just maybe he’ll be able to grow stronge-
Teru slams him against the train. “Because you’re weak,” Teru answers harshly, blade trapping him to the wall.
Kou knows he upset Teru, he knows what he did isn’t something an exorcist should be doing… Well, he wasn’t a good exorcist anyway. All the talent went to Teru after all. “But sometimes… I’m jealous of how weak you are,” Teru mutters.
But it’s too late, too late for Kou to listen and to sympathize and to bottle down his negative feelings, forced to move on and adapt to the events of this quickly progressing world. Though he didn’t grow at all, maybe he could’ve ignored the truth, spending his days idly with Yashiro and Mitsuba… and maybe Hanako too. But now Teru threw the truth into his face, and it’s not a truth that Kou can find himself to accept.
He starts to tear up, both at the crushing weight of the past events and at the hurtful words he could usually handle. He can handle the hurtful words spat casually by people he barely knows, scoffing at him for his weakness, but not from Teru’s mouth, not from his voice. Never from Teru.
“Hold it!” Akane’s voice cuts through the silence. Kou can distantly hear Akane scolding Teru, who explained the situation calmly. As if nothing big happened, as if he didn’t just traumatize Kou. Kou continues to shake silently to the side, stiffening up as they continue bickering.
The group starts to leave, Kou, having nowhere else to go, walks after them, a far ways behind the group, not wanting to hear Teru’s voice. All Kou can hear from Teru’s voice was the apathetic and fake-sweet voice he’d have when he told Kou to do chores instead. All he could hear was Teru yelling at him, accusing him of trying to be a hero. Telling him that he's weak, that he didn't expect Kou to be useful, how he wouldn't have brought Kou along, all echoing throughout his head.
These words swallowed him up internally, unbeknownst to the fact that he himself was actually being swallowed up by a mysterious mist. “I didn’t ask him to protect me,” he mutters quietly. “Soon you won't need to be protected,” a voice whispers, right next to his ear.
“Wha-” Kou whirls around, finally attuned to his surroundings. “Kou-!” he could hear Teru shout, but he was too far. Too far to do anything, too far to reach. A sharp pain, and then a wave of sleepiness sweeps through Kou, causing him to sway. He distinctly felt the sensation of being swallowed up, something warm flowing along his arm, his body. It’s everywhere– The surrounding temperature shifted dramatically. “I hope Teru and Tiara will be able to eat healthily,” he thinks as he slips off into a deep sleep.
-
“In the end it’s kind of fitting,” Kou mutters to himself, swinging his legs along the railings in Mitsuba’s mirror realm. “The weak exorcist is a strong supernatural,” he continues thoughtfully.
“You stupid, you shouldn’t have become a supernatural. You had a whole life to live!” Mitsuba interjects, sitting beside Kou with a humph. Kou’s eyes waver a bit, “I wasn’t really living back there, it wasn’t a life worth living.”
His legs stop at a stand-still, he looks at Mitsuba, smiling sadly, “I always thought about it. What would happen if I died? How I would die? I hoped that maybe, I’d be able to be strong enough to die for someone I love... In the end I died to love.”