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When Mika first met Yuu, he had been stunned by the sheer amount of rage in such a small body. Yuu had been a force of nature – not exactly a very powerful one physically, as it had taken close to nothing to put him on his ass back then – but the intensity of his anger had taken Mika’s breath away. It had been like Yuu had warped the very atmosphere of any room he had been in, his bitterness like a miasma surrounding him. As the two oldest kids in the orphanage, they had been roomed together and even at night, Yuu stewed. Mika had lost a lot of sleep over it in the first few weeks.
Yuu had learned to trust him. Mika had learned to deal with Yuu’s dark aura. Four years later the world had been flipped on its ear and the dark-haired boy who had begun mellowing had hardened up again – this time, his fury was directed at the vampires that had come to bring them to the vampire city, the beings that drained them and kept them like livestock. By now Yuu had trusted Mika enough to open up to him, which had resulted in lengthy rants and muttered words and dark looks at passing vampire guards that ended with Yuu getting hurt more often than Mika could count. Mika had tried to keep their family together, nothing was more important than family after all, but truly…he had done it for Yuu.
Yuu had needed a family, loving friends much more than any of them, whether he had ever admitted it or not.
Mika didn’t like thinking about the catastrophe of their attempted escape; he still saw Ferid’s smirking, mock-sympathetic face in his nightmares, keeping eye contact with him while he murdered the little ones. For fun, for politics. Mika had thought he had the vampire wrapped around his fingers and it still hurt that he had been so, so very wrong. All of those innocent lives went on his conscience. He had murdered his own family as surely as if he’d had taken up a sword and cut them open himself. He had been prepared to die among them, bleeding out quickly on the formerly pristine marble floor of the exit hall, the high, sloping ceiling elegant and glittering above him like the foundations of heaven, Yuu’s back still imprinted over his vision. Yuu fleeing. Yuu surviving.
In all honesty, he would have sacrificed all of them all over again if it had meant keeping Yuu save, giving him the freedom he longed for so badly.
Mika had been given new life, but what was life worth without Yuu? It had become his sole objective to find his friend, his brother, the one he loved most and keep him safe, because living was dangerous. He had superior strength now, enough to protect Yuu. And he had been given the chance, too.
He had found Yuu among humans, the very race he had come to loathe as much as the vampires because what were they if not a symbiosis of everything that had gone wrong? Without humans, the vampires wouldn’t be able to survive. If it was only him and Yuu…
Mika was pulled from his musings by soft lips brushing against his jaw. He smiled, his eyes still closed, and curled his fingers into soft, dark hair, submitting to the kisses. Just him and Yuu wasn’t an option now anymore, anyway. Sunlight filtered through the broken patches in the roof of the barn they had holed up in after fleeing the horrible scene of Kimizuki’s sister unleashing terror upon their fellow soldiers, they had Shinoa’s quick thinking to thank for that – Mika knew he himself hadn’t been able to make the decision. The kisses trailed down his neck, such a curious sensation; before Mika’s body had been old enough to become interested in the general idea of intimate contact it had been ripped away from him by Krul’s blood. Vampires were rarely interested in physical contact unless it involved fighting, which was a popular pastime among the guards Mika had been grouped with, or drinking blood – and now that Mika had tasted a human from the source, not just any human but Yuu, his Yuu, he had a pretty good idea of ecstasy. To be the one who had his neck kissed instead of being the one to do it put an odd perspective on things; he felt more human again, for one, more like the sunny-minded child he had been and less like the jaded monster he had become.
His fingers carded through the soft dark silk of Yuu’s wild hair, down the back of his neck; his fingertips could feel every shift of muscle and sinew, the fragility of his human bones and vertebrae – even though Yuu had impressive stamina and endurance, it wouldn’t take more than a moment for Mika to break every bone on his body with ease. The thought put a sour burn into his core; he wrapped both arms around Yuu, feeling him smile against the curve of his neck with the hug he finally accepted without protesting – so different from the child he had been, as well, although Mika was convinced Yuu had changed for the better instead of the worse – and he said Mika’s name so sweetly the blond’s cold heart clenched painfully. Warm arms wrapped around him in return and Mika squeezed his eyes shut tightly, unwilling to destroy the lone moment of peace, the first in a long, long time. Yuu laughed quietly, his warm breath gusting against his skin and Mika shivered. “I love you, Mi.”
It sounded wrong. It was all wrong; Mika’s throat was tight as he opened his eyes, motes of dust floating among the beams of sunlight that came in through the broken roof. He rolled away from the make-shift cot next to his, unable to look at Yuu’s carefully folded uniform and the black and green katana that was propped on the pillow. Mika felt empty.
He sat up with his back to Yuu’s things; his body had been salvaged by Shinoa and Mitsuba after the quick snick of Guren’s sword had sliced through Yuu’s neck like butter, the bright green eyes wide in surprise for only a second – the mere second that Mika had taken too long to block the swing. Yuu’s head had fallen into his hands, fingers snagging in his hair. He had been numb, useless, staring at the blank, vaguely surprised face. Before rage had come to the surface to break the black ice blanketing Mika’s mind, Mika had been dragged away by Yuu’s shouting squad, a mere second before the large demon had burst into existence.
Mika dropped his face into his hands, elbows propped on his knees. It was a good thing that silly superstitions were hard to break, because the squad never bothered him in here during the day, as if he was asleep.
No one needed to see a vampire cry, after all.
God, I love you so much…