Chapter Text
Today, like most days, was empty and useless.
The bar was quiet, the silence echoing across sticky hardwood floors. The only source of noise was the crackling of wood in the fireplace, sending thin tendrils of smoke curling up the chimney. Kaoru watched the smoke paint pictures in the air instead of cleaning like he was supposed to.
The quiet was to be expected, for the most part. It was mid-afternoon on a weekday; people wouldn’t be getting out of work for another hour. Yet Kaoru knew his father wouldn’t care about any excuse he had, regardless of validity—he would just care that Kaoru was being lazy again, his bad attitude repelling potential customers. Which, for the record, he was kind of right about; Kaoru’s attitude was typically sour, hidden under a layer of saccharine words and thinly stretched smiles. He kept up his responsibilities, bartending and cleaning stray tables, but the bare minimum was all he ever did.
But the chances of people showing up today were low; it was always like this, regardless of Kaoru’s mood. And when the promise of being scolded remained regardless of Kaoru’s presence…it didn’t exactly make him want to stay.
So he threw the damp cleaning cloth into the sink for later, put out the fire, flipped the sign to read “Sorry! We’re closed” (as if he was actually apologetic), and slipped out the back door into the washed-out brick streets.
He found himself unconsciously wandering to the docks, where the waves lapped at the pillars and sandstone that kept the port standing. Warm sunshine reflected off of the ocean as the poignant tang of salt filled Kaoru’s lungs. He lost himself in the crowds of people surging up to different stalls and receding back, throwing themselves over and over at new shops, washing up money and pulling products back with them. Their voices overlapped with ocean waves and clicking of shoe soles against the wooden pier. Each voice was warm—each carried a cadence that was familiar to Kaoru in a way he hadn’t remembered in a long time, one better left in the past. Emotions rose at the edge of his vision and threatened to wash over him like a tidal wave; Kaoru shoved the urge away and hurried past the crowd.
Leaning against the terrace at the edge of the pier, Kaoru allowed himself to get lost in the view of the ships coming into the harbor. Large, extensive boats, shining in the midafternoon sun stood next to shabby, rusty ones bringing in fish. Waves splashed up, the consistent roar easy to lose oneself in. And that’s exactly what Kaoru wanted to do, so he made no effort to pay attention to anything—not the people coming by, not the light spray of brine when a ship came too close, not even the setting sun.
He almost found himself half-asleep on one of the benches when his reverie was broken by a cluster of nearby gossipers. They whispered amongst themselves, and Kaoru was content with ignoring them, when one word caught his attention.
Disease.
It was hissed, obscured and barely audible, scorned and hidden. The word sunk into Kaoru like a knife into flesh, cutting him deep and letting thick, viscous emotions leak out of him. He couldn’t focus much on the conversation after that, instead concentrating on the girl who had uttered that word.
When her friends dissolved into the crowd, the sunset-orange sky dyed the girl in warm colors.. Her long, dark shadow painted the street below her as she began to walk away; Kaoru inhaled sharply and trailed after her. Making a casual push towards her, he brushed against her shoulder lightly. “Hey.”
She squealed as she turned to look at him, round eyes wide in surprise. Reassuring her with a smile, Kaoru leaned forward. “Woah, didn’t mean to scare you. Can’t say I’ve seen you around here before.” The words fell naturally from his mouth—a familiar song and dance.
She acted like every girl before had: she looked away, nervous at such a blatant flirt. And Kaoru knew where to push and where to back off, which buttons to press and for how long, how to get what he wanted out of her. It was comforting to play the cat and mouse game with her, a comfort that gave way to nausea if he thought too hard.
After enough playing, getting her to giggle and blush—even allowing him to walk her home—Kaoru felt confident enough to finally bite down on his prey. “I saw you earlier, you know, with your friends.”
“Oh, um…” She hesitated, before finishing with, “They’re not really my friends.”
“Aw, a shame…a girl like you deserves all the people in the world~” A vivid flush invaded her cheeks, darting her eyes away as Kaoru smirked—gotcha. He had her where he wanted her. “I couldn’t help but overhear something about…a disease? What’s that about?”
“Huh?” She looked up at him like he had just said something offensive, giddiness gone. “Why would you want to know?”
He shrugged. “Is being curious a crime?”
She hummed, seeming to weigh her options. Sighing, she asked, “Well…you didn’t hear it from me, yeah?” Kaoru nodded. “And you won’t tell anyone?” Another nod. She inhaled, then whispered, “I heard…do you know about the, um, manor?”
“Manor?” Kaoru had lived in the port town for his entire life, and never once had he heard of a manor. There were, of course, the larger houses the more well-off people had, but those didn’t qualify for the title of manor. They were, at the very most, vacation homes for the rich, and that was even a stretch at times.
Her eyes widened as she gauged his reaction, widening before gaining a sharp, foxy glint. She paused and suppressed a smile before leaning in closer, obscuring her mouth with a hand, as if she was telling a secret and scared of getting caught. “Well…just outside of town, right? There are those hills…” Kaoru nodded, and a memory glinted in his periphery of thick tufts of cattails. He shoved it away, filling its absence with the girl’s words. “Well—and you didn’t hear this from me—there’s this…manor, right? It’s supposed to be huge. And, well, it’s supposed to be abandoned. But I heard that a bunch of people went to investigate and, well…” She pulled back, looking up at him. “They saw some weird stuff.”
Kaoru quirked an eyebrow. She curled her lips into a smile, sunlight hitting her face to draw sharp shadows across her face. “Discarded parts moving on their own, a boy mixed with an animal, and a dead man come back to life.”
Kaoru huffed. This rumor was reading more like a bad horror story that his brother used to torment him with as a kid compared to anything substantial.
“Then they got sick.” But that—Kaoru perked up—that was what he wanted to hear.
“It started slowly, just with a cough, but it ramped up in intensity…soon they were bedridden, lungs barely functioning and just spasming with any inhale, and before they knew it, they were dead. I even heard that it spread to people a few times, infecting people in the shadows of the night.” She shrugged. “But that’s just what I heard. It’s a weird story, though, if nothing else… a funny ghost story. What do you think?”
(Kaoru thought that those symptoms sounded strangely like the ones his mother had procured. It was just allergies at first, and before he and his family knew it, it wasn’t just allergies. It was something bigger, something more, something beyond themselves to understand. And then she was gone.)
Kaoru kicked a pebble on the road before flicking his eyes up. “I think it sounds like someone is trying to scare a cute girl so she’ll ask to be held~”
She giggled, face flush again. “Yeah, I guess so. Ah…” She paused in the middle of the road, staring at one of the buildings. She hesitated a beat, before whispering, “My house is right here.”
Turning to face Kaoru, she smiled up at him. She looked nervous as she asked, “Will I see you again?”
“Of course,” Kaoru soothed despite his mind running in high gear now. (Was that what had gotten to his mother? The…manor sickness? Some sort of supernatural disease? It would explain why the disease was previously unidentified, why it was fatal, why it set in so quickly and quietly…) “I work at the tavern up the street—you can stop by any time.”
Her round face rose, beaming. “Alright! I’ll—I’ll see you tomorrow, then?”
“Mhm.” Kaoru leaned down, letting his lips brush her ear. “Bye-bye, now~”
Giggling, she scampered to the door and sent him a final wave before letting herself inside. Kaoru sighed as she entered, allowing the gleaned information to fully settle in his mind as he walked home.
-
The house was a dark and unwelcoming place.
It always had been, in many ways. Kaoru was used to the wheezing silence of the halls, the creaks of the floorboards, the windows that either let too much or not enough light in. But there had been a warmth to it before, a levity—something letting it float above what might be considered scary.
Now, though, it had sunken into its foundation, folded in on itself, compressed the air and made it hard to breathe in. It made Kaoru skitter around like a small mouse trapped in a labyrinth with no promise of a way out or even a reward for surviving. And thus, Kaoru avoided home whenever he could. And, while he desperately wanted to avoid it right now, he didn’t really have a choice but to go home.
The doorknob stuck when he turned it, the way it always did, and the door let out a droning creak when he opened the door. Hopefully, with a little luck, Kaoru could sneak in and out without anyone noticing and be done with it.
The knives were easy enough to find—they were always in the drawer in the kitchen—as was his coat, but the lamp was a harder thing to find. It was usually in the closet by the door, but for whatever reason, it wasn’t in there. Thus, Kaoru was left with no option but to slink through the house in search of it.
Kaoru knew which floorboards to dodge to make his intrusion as unnoticeable as possible. He had memorized the patterns long ago, when the family was more put together than not, when his sister still lived here and his brother wasn’t missing half the time, and when mom was—
The grating creak of his misstep was ugly and incongruous with the sharp, echoing silence. Kaoru cringed as he lifted his foot up, the same nasty noise alerting anyone who hadn’t heard it the first time of his presence. Resigned to being caught, Kaoru threw himself fully into finding the lamp and then leaving.
A hasty search of his room, which was barren aside from the futon and stray dressers he kept clothes in, proved fruitless. His brother’s was even more barren—the futon was made with the sterile cleanliness of a hospital bed, untouched by a patient. The room was dead, the drawers of clothes untouched and full. (Kaoru had no idea what his brother did all day, to be honest; where he went, who he saw, what he said, where he slept—it was all a mystery. His brother did help with the business, though, so it wasn’t like Kaoru was going to bug him about it as long as he did his share. Asking would only invite his brother to ask what he was doing instead of working.)
His sister’s was completely empty—she had long moved in with her husband. Kaoru remembered when they came and took the furniture and put it in their own place, leaving another hole in the house. Honestly, he didn’t know what he expected to find when searching hers; it was ultimately a futile attempt to put off where he knew it was: his father’s room.
Kaoru grimaced as he opened the door. If his dad caught him after he had skipped work today to mess around with another girl, he’d end up dead. But the shiny metal of the lamp quickly caught his eye and easily reignited Kaoru’s hope; he darted to the other side of the room where it sat on the desk helplessly and picked it up. Hugging it to his chest, he began to walk slowly back when—
“Kaoru.”
The deep, gruff voice was unmistakable. Inhaling slowly, Kaoru looked up and made eye contact. “Dad.”
His dad looked at him stiffly. “What are you doing with that?”
“It’s none of your business.” Kaoru attempted to shove past him; he easily put out an arm and stopped him.
“It’s my business when your actions—” He said the word with a thick venom— “affect the business.”
“Whatever.”
“Whatever?” A glint out of the corner of his eye, and Kaoru inhaled sharply, chewing at his bottom lip as his father scolded, “Watch your tone, young man.”
“Yeah, okay.” Whatever got him out of here the fastest, even if that meant agreeing with his dad.
His father retracted his arm, allowing Kaoru to slide by, but not without asking, “What were you doing this afternoon?” as Kaoru reached the doorframe.
The question froze him in his spot, the dust floating through the final traces of sunlight around his father. He looked disproportionately large, a monstrous shadow with all details obscured. But Kaoru had made him angrier before, so he didn’t hesitate when he said, “I was out.”
“Out?” His father glared. “It was your responsibility to look at the business today.”
Kaoru rolled his eyes (not that his father could see) and walked out the door—his father followed him down the hall with harsh footsteps, calling, “You know, your brother and sister are having to make up for your slacking.”
“I know,” Kaoru snapped. “I’m not an idiot.”
“Then why do you insist on scattering the chances I’m giving you to the wind?”
“Why do you insist on choosing what I do?”
His father pulled back, glaring severely. “I’m trying to make sure you have a future, even though you seem content in fooling around.” He enunciated each harsh consonant with an acridity that made Kaoru’s feelings buckle before reforming with a bitter anger.
“Save your future for my siblings,” he spat, whipping around to stare at his dad, tall and broad and whole. “If I’m—if I’m such a disappointment, maybe you shouldn’t spare anything on me. You should give up trying while you’re still ahead.”
He inhaled sharply, chest expanding and harsh words dancing on his tongue, before losing his momentum and deflating. “Do what you wish,” was all he sighed. Kaoru shoved his cloak and shoes on and walked out without glancing back at his father.
-
On second thought, maybe his dad was right. This was, perhaps, one of the stupidest ideas Kaoru had ever had.
“The hills outside of town” was, as it turned out, a very vague location for there to be a manor. There were tons of hills, all densely populated by thick trees and a severe lack of paths. He hiked through several without any luck in finding a mansion, but with a weird sensation of being watched.
Kaoru sighed and leaned against a decades-old tree, bark rough against his forehead. To be honest, he was prepared to just turn around and head home with his tail tucked between his legs and face his father, as shameful as that was. He was a stupid idiot, huh, thinking he could do something so big like this.
Kaoru shuddered suddenly, inexplicably. It felt like something was creeping closer, trying to get ahold of him. Attempting to shrug it off, he stood up and began to walk in a direction he sincerely hoped wasn’t the way he came in, following the loosely defined “path”.
For all he complained, the wild forest seemed to be relatively well taken care of. There were no large logs disturbing his path, for the most part, and what few weeds snagged on his boots were due to his own clumsiness compared to any sort of natural sabotage.
It was…strangely quiet, though. To the point of it being out of character. Even back home, they had animal caws that would disturb the quiet of the night. Here, though, it was almost completely silent, aside from his own rustling, and the occasional shudder of bushes behind him.
…It was just his anxiety, but Kaoru couldn’t stop himself from stopping suddenly, feeling for the knife he had tucked into his belt. Just to test if the rustling was entirely from himself. And it seemed it was, seeing that it stopped as soon as he did. A strong breeze whipped his coat around him, and he continued forward a few paces before stopping again.
He started and stopped a few times—just to prove it to himself, to calm his nerves!—before sighing and shoving the anxiety to the side. There wasn’t anything out here—just himself. And his own insane mind that had decided, on a whim, to leave home and follow a rumor. God, now that he was out here, this was a dumb idea. Just some sort of childish temper tantrum. Killing those theoretical monsters wouldn’t bring his mom back. Hell, it might even end with Kaoru dead. And then what use was that?
But the life he was currently living was empty, shallow, filled only with dread for the next day. Time moved slowly and achingly, and Kaoru could feel the energy being sapped with each day that passed, dwindling until there would be nothing left sustaining him. A squeezing nothingness is what awaited him here.
(And maybe death was better than that.)
Snap.
Kaoru’s heart jumped as he pulled the knife out and whipped around to come face to face with a wolf.
A giant wolf.
The few beams of moonlight in the night sky did almost nothing to illuminate it—it was too big for that—but Kaoru could make out just enough of the broad strokes. It had to be twice his size in height, with thick, light gray fur bunched up in tufts. Bright yellow eyes that matched the moon behind him glared directly at Kaoru, penetrating his very being. It opened its large muzzle, revealing rows of sharp canines with flecks of saliva flaring out.
Kaoru had never seen a wolf before; he had been trained once, he thought, on how to react to a wolf, but that had been years ago now. All knowledge of that was vague reminiscence—he was supposed to lay down, right?—that vanished the instant he came face to face with something so massive. (They didn’t ever seem to be that large in the diagrams he had seen as a kid…)
So Kaoru followed his first instinct: scream and run.
He wasn’t much of a runner—never had been. But it was a wonder what adrenaline could do to him; he shot through the woods easily, propelling himself over the stray logs and brambles without hesitation. He had no idea if the wolf was following him—he didn’t really care, to be honest—instead thrusting himself harder, faster, anything to get away from that thing.
But he lost steam quickly; he was going to have to resort to the knife in his belt that—
He furiously patted the part he knew he had stuck it in. Then the rest of his belt. His knifeless belt.
That resparked his energy—with no option to fight, he thrust himself forward with a renewed determination. The trees seemed to part in response to his resolve, allowing him a clear view of a fat mansion sitting handsomely on a hill. He panted, but didn’t stop running until he had long since cleared the forest and reached the base of the manor.
He felt like a mouse as he approached it, shaky and tired. He took in the full scope of the sprawling symbol of wealth slowly, analyzing every thick, smooth stone that constituted the walls, the thin beams of moonlight reflecting off of them. Vines of fire lilies nestled themselves into the cement, framing an intimidating wooden door that matched the stones in color. Running his hands over it, Kaoru could tell the rough wood of the door had to be heavy, which was incredibly frustrating. The trek here alone was more effort than he had put into something in a long time, and he'd just had the shock of a lifetime (while there had been a warning of a human-animal, there was nothing about a giant wolf. But this is what he got for impulsively following rumors out of nowhere). Now he was supposed to shove a locked door open with his shaky hands?
God, who did he think he was kidding? The wood splinters bit into his palms as he pushed it open. The hinges screeched painfully, the door creaking in response. He—the town…slacker, he guessed? The fact he couldn’t come up with anything to describe his role was confirmation enough of his role—was going to fix the infestation issue, that stupid, snaking rumor he’d heard muttered once. God—yeah, right. He scoffed as he teased the door open just wide enough to let himself in—he was delusional, thinking he could do anything worth something.
But, well, what other choice did he have? He looked back up at the moon, a thin slit in the thick black of the sky, the light dripping down onto the town he had known ever since he was a kid, now tiny and distant below him. What was he going to do? Go home? To that oppressive home, where the air clung to you like sticky, slow summer humidity, where time seemed to melt and condense in on itself? Face his dad after that interaction? (Maybe see that wolf, that was probably a hallucination, in all honesty, induced by the late hour and anxiety, but a risk nonetheless?)
No, thanks. Kaoru’d rather have whatever fate was lurking in this stupid building. What was the worst thing that would happen to him? Death? That didn’t seem so bad in comparison. Anything seemed better in comparison.
A—the—wolf howled in the distance; Kaoru whimpered and darted in, closing the door behind him and locking him in darkness.
Fumbling with a match, Kaoru lit his lamp. It clattered loudly in his sweaty, shaky grasp (for all that resolve, he was a coward, huh). It cast a sad flicker that fumbled about in the grand entrance hall, but it was enough to see, and that was all that mattered.
The room was primarily empty, with a checkered marble floor below him and high, vaulted ceilings. A chandelier spun slowly above him like a hypnotizing spiral, the crystals reflecting the shaky flicker of Kaoru’s shoddy flame. Swallowing roughly, he took a tentative step forward as a cold sweat slithered down his neck. His heel echoed endlessly down black corridors in front of him.
…How much searching did he have to do to confirm that this place was empty? The silence was getting to him, and he had been there for all of a minute. He only had to poke around a little, right? Just make sure nothing too…obvious was there, and then he could go home, and then everything would be fine, because nothing was here and this was a stupid idea in the first place. It would be okay. He just had to believe his mantra.
So he took another step forward, attempting to muffle the echo, and then another, and soon he was wandering down halls without a problem.
The manor was simple to navigate. Despite the anxiety making Kaoru’s hands shake, sending inconsistent light around echoing expanses of empty space, it was relatively relaxing to wander around by himself. It left him alone with his thoughts—a sensation he was unfamiliar with. He was never truly alone in the home; he was constantly on edge, waiting for his dad to get home and another squabble about how he was ungrateful, listening for a door to open and watching for shadows to sneak under his door. But here, now, it was quiet in a peaceful manner, in a way that he knew nothing would touch him.
Kaoru’s anxiety softened with each room he entered and found empty, which was quite a few. Each room’s door opened softly, in a way that was secondhand, without creaking or screeching. The rooms were dusty, but clean. Clean and empty, in a way that felt ancient and lonely. Untouched. Aching. (It was a shame that this place had found such a fate, Kaoru found himself thinking. It would’ve been jaw-dropping in its peak, and if it had been preserved…Well, it would be useless to consider such a fate now.)
And after scaling the endless hall, Kaoru had reached the last room. He almost found himself smiling lightly as he opened the door to the room, ready to return home, and found a pile of…something in the corner.
Huh.
The room had a small window with thin curtains letting thin beams of moonlight fall through, yet it was still dark enough that Kaoru couldn’t make anything out about it. Mostly, what Kaoru could make out about it was in relation to the few scattered objects in the room. It was shorter than the bed, but wider than the side table. It was almost…claylike, in texture, from what little the light outlined.
Kaoru shrugged it off—each room before had been fine, so why would this be any different? So he went to close the door, pulling on the tarnished metal handle gently, when something twitched in the room.
Kaoru blinked, freezing where he stood. Instinctively, his hand flew to where his knife rested—would’ve rested, if he hadn’t dropped it. He grit his teeth as his heart hammered in his chest, the same way it had earlier. Slowly, carefully, he eased the door open again, just slightly. Just enough that he could see into it, peek his eye through the narrow crack.
Nothing stirred in the room, aside from a few stray clouds outside passing, making the moonlight shift and illuminate random expanses without reason. The clay pile seemed to rest, though, calmly resigned. Kaoru swallowed roughly, unblinking as he waited for something to move again, second-guessing himself each second longer he stood there. He had probably just seen one of those clouds shift out of the corner of his eyes and it had scared him, that was all. (God, first the wolf, now a clay pile? Not only was he a slack-off, he was also a scaredy-cat.)
Just as he irritably resigned himself to paranoia and an overactive imagination, the pile shifted, teetering to the left, then the right, swaying like a tree in the wind. Kaoru felt himself recoil, hands going clammy and sticky on the lamp. Trying to keep his breath steady, Kaoru watched as it convulsed, a crude shiver of energy expelling something—a hand, illuminated by crude moonlight, pushing itself out of the top.
Once free, it began pulling things from the pile—forearms and thighs and ankles and fingers—that shivered and shuddered, spasming as they stitched themselves together, but Kaoru had long since stopped paying attention. His heart pounded in his chest, making his whole body shake; he inhaled slowly, trying to steady himself as he inched the door shut, taking care to inhale as silently as possible in hopes whatever it was wouldn’t notice his presence. Slowly, cautiously, he turned the door handle enough to silently slide the latch in before lightly stepping back, careful not to let his footsteps echo down the hall.
Now that he was away from the parts, the human parts, Kaoru let his breathing accelerate, heart convulsing and shaking in the same way his lantern did in his slick grip. They were real—those rumors weren’t insane nonsense. They were real. Turning foot, he walked as fast as he could without letting a noise escape him, with bile creeping up his throat and something lurking behind him. His vision shook, edges fuzzy with fear and adrenaline as he waited for something to tap him from behind, to swallow him whole and rip him apart.
Whatever that thing was, it had parts, and who knew what it wanted to do with those parts, or where it had gotten them, or, or… Kaoru shook his head, slinging cold sweat away from his face as he hastened, having forgotten to remain silent. He couldn’t think of those possibilities now, not when he was still in the same building as it, in the same vicinity as something that was going to squeeze his throat and drain him of whatever sad excuse of a life he had left.
The foyer no longer looked as spacious as it had before—it was now cramped like home, trapping Kaoru inside like a bird. He couldn’t get enough oxygen into his lungs, shuddering and spasming as Kaoru hastily darted his eyes around before making a straight shot to the door. Precautions thrown to the wind, he let the lantern rattle as he gripped the door, yanking it open, letting him outside, when—
“Hello.”
Kaoru yipped, whipping his head back to look at a man.
He had to be around the same age as Kaoru—though he was at a distance, the mixture of the moonlight and the shuddering flame of the lantern allowed Kaoru to make out rough details. He had long black hair that curved around his neck, framing a long face. His manner of dress seemed outdated—a full suit with a cravat, adorned with an ornate gem. His most striking feature, though, were the dark eyes, red and full like rubies.
Kaoru shuddered, swallowing as he collected his breath and thoughts. Sweat pasted his bangs to his forehead—he must look awful, like a drowned rat—as he fumbled out, “You have to help me.” His voice was shaky, sticky in ways it shouldn’t be.
“Ah?” The man blinked at him, cocking his head to the side and making stray curls bounce. “What’s happened to you?”
The words fell from Kaoru’s lips before he could even recognize what was happening. “There’s—there’s a pile back there, a, a—a monster. I—I saw it, you have to believe me, I saw it—” Kaoru lifted a shaky finger as tears welled into his eyes, obscuring the figure so all he was was a silhouette— “I saw it back there, I—we have to get out of here, it’s not safe—”
The echoing of shoe soles against the floor was the only clue Kaoru had that he was moving as the tears began to flow freely, falling down his face in thin, watery trails.
“A monster, huh…?” He chuckled, a sinister, rumbling thing that rang in Kaoru’s ears. He whimpered, taking a hesitant step and blinking away tears to stare at the man, his eyes now glowing as he approached. He lifted Kaoru’s chin with a gloved hand, thin silk cold against his skin. “And who gave you the right to make that distinction?” He smiled, revealing sharp teeth—fangs.
Kaoru squeaked, fumbling backwards and falling as a new figure appeared behind him—a boy with dark skin and a thick bolt protruding from his skull. Kaoru swallowed the lump in his throat as he realized that that was the previous pile and scrambled back up. He threw the door open with a ferocity unmatched, tears streaming down his face, and bolted down the sharp incline.
Large, gasping breaths were all Kaoru had to sustain himself as he skittered downwards. He didn’t bother to look back as he tumbled over missing stones in the cement, not even bothering to listen to the monster as it called after him. He didn’t know if he was being watched or mocked or chased down and away, unable to hear anything over his own ragged breathing in his own ears.
The thin sliver of moon in the sky remained strong, though, even with everything Kaoru was feeling. It rested in the sky, a huge cut that bled light down over the ocean. The ocean, that—
Kaoru.
The sudden flooding of a memory overtook Kaoru—he was on a hill, thick tufts of light green grass concealing him. He was crying about something he couldn’t recall; it had to be embarrassing, because he knew he was hiding, and his mother’s voice was her calling to find him. He hadn’t heard his name said like that in a long time. This was before it had gone thin and shaky, feeble and fraying at the edges. It was strong and warm then, laced with love.
She found him quickly, holding him in her arms in the grass, cattails swaying in the breeze. She pet his hair before whispering something in his ear, something he couldn’t quite reach, but if he kept going, he could hear her again, see her again—
Kaoru lost his footing, toes catching in a hole in the concrete, throwing himself forward. He yelped as his head met hard concrete with a sharp thunk, each individual rock digging into his skull.
And Kaoru’s vision went black.
-
“Oh, dear…Did we push too much, do you think, Adonis-kun?”
“No, I don’t think so. I never even spoke to him. …Do you think he’ll be alright?”
A pause. “Well, I don’t think he’s dead. We ought to take care of him until he awakens. Doggie?”
“What?”
“Now, doggie, you really mustn’t bark like that… Well, won’t you help us carry him back up?”
“Tch…”
“I’ll help, Oogami.”
“Aw, Adonis-kun…you’re always so kind to help your friends.”