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The sky was so vibrant in its shades of blue
And the sounds of his boots squeaking as he rocked back on his heels across the schoolyard pavement were so loud- he was drowning.
The 7:30 pm train breathed it’s terrible smoke and as people spewed from its mouth like fire he heard the muffled sounds of life in the city of Tokyo. Every now and then an occasional voice would stand out from the others a cry for help, a laugh or mumble of displeasure- all were semantics to the bleached blonde in a hat and winter coat. Even the technological beeps and honks of electronics were lost in the haze of noise. Like the smoke which pours from his lips turning water into wine. Actually it was much more sinful thank that, he should say rather, cannabis to smoke. He couldn’t help but chuckle at his own dark poetry.
It was getting late and Yukine could no longer tell the colour of the sky, in fact he almost forgot that’s exactly what he was looking at. His eyes were heavy and stung when he blinked away the bluntness in his vision. When had he lain back on the ground? Was this even the ground, did the secret of advance inter-dimensional theory finally engulf him between the void? Not that it mattered much, given he was dead and all. Maybe he could sleep for a while, he let his eyes fall shut and when he opened them again his honey coloured eyes fell on a pair of scuffed mud brown boots. He knew them as they belonged to his lord, his creator - his god. And he hated them. The way they were worn out and fraying away the faux leather like the years that hadn't so much as kissed his skin. The obnoxious black track suit that reeked of sweat and stained with splotches.
"Are you fucking crazy?" His voice screeched, swiping the narcotic from his fingers. "Do you realize what these could do to you? Aww crap..." Yato hissed, running his hands through his shaggy oxford hair and cursing all the while." Hiyori is going to have my head..." It took a few moments for his senses to process the lack of material between his fingertips, he couldn't tell if it was the drugs or the frostbite he'd managed to catch and dye his digits. During this time he's rolled onto his side, pushing off the grass and staggering to his feel while his reddened eyes adjusted to the soft mandarin glow peaking from behind the clouds. "What the heck were you thinking? Just because you're my regalia means it's okay? That you're somehow immune to the law just because you're dead?" He grit his teeth and let his eyes reflect his past. His rage, his pain, his future- everything he invested in a five yen coin and the blonde who was blowing small rings of smoke from his lips as if the gates to Tartarus had swung open. "No, Yato I don't" He rolled his head and rubbed his neck absentmindedly. His lips were chapped and chipped when he spoke "Because when I was alive I could actually feel things. Not the emotionally shit you know, like happiness and feeling sad because like, I know that to experience life you have to feel."
There was a paused as if waiting for the words in his brain to catch up with his mouth. "At least when my parents yelled, I cringed when my ears rang and my skin and scars stung for like, a few minutes or whatever..." He looked down at the pavement as if to say that he didn't care. He did what he had to do. He sinned and played fiddle with devil, their dance had come to stop with the music and the party was dying down. What was done was done.
His eyebrows softened as he looked upon the frail body, green coat hanging from his bony shoulders and jeans dripping from his scarred stomach. This was no life for a boy his age to live. To sleep in alley ways, breaking into shrines and stealing from people's dumpsters to save them from starvation. No sir, this was no life for a boy of fourteen to live, even if it was the afterlife. His body had been freed of his wounds of the living, now sealed within a tattoo and a contract was looking more and more like damnation than salvation.
So if Yukine needed to get 'lit up', if only just to imagine a better life... maybe- just maybe...
The God rolled his wrist and offered the butt back to him.
Some humans came to shrines to seek salvation and to find religion- to hopefully be told for all the good in this world there will be life after this one offering them peace. Some wanted to be saved and some wanted to die. But there was something even more tragic, a plea for friendship. The hope and wish for an end to a lonely existence. The wish for a friendship everlasting and a hope to laugh and share memories with a person you could call your friend. What Yukine didn't need now was a God to promise an answer but instead a friend to question and listen. Wide eyes waved it away and tossed him his lighter, that he clumsily caught. "You need it more than I do. Besides you're a God, right? So it's not like you can actual be condemned or something, right?" He laughed almost to himself as he made his way out of the schoolyard, practically floating in his own world. "Are you coming?" He called with a numb tongue. Yato could barely hear him as he slipped the lighter into his pocket and coughed a dust cloud concocted from his lungs. He couldn't stand the thing but hey, if it worked for Yukine, why not?
The sun was out of sight and the streetlights illuminate the deserted streets while the traffic buzzed past them. Hookers, businessmen and characters of all sorts swarmed to the bars and the young folks took to the streets after saying their good-nights and ' i love you's'. The latch on their windows were weird cannabis. Their sin. While others were busy drinking and boozing, sexual pleasure for a few bucks hardly worth their salt- Yato found himself wondering if there is a hell it can't be lonely. With so many sinners crowded in on place interaction was bound to happen. In the flames of hell they would dine on the bowels of sheep and wash it down with wine. Being a God, Yato would never see it. He passed on to Yukine who must've tossed in in a shop corner somewhere and they stumbled through the streets together, just two spirits in their own world.
He would have have Yukine tell him about hell.
Gods didn't have all the answers and maybe one day when the world stopped spinning everyone- mortals and Gods alike could sit on a park bench and let the smoke fill their lungs.