sakon76

Subaru considered that if he was going to be killed by a demon tonight, he'd prefer to die without his stomach's pointed reminders. Aside from which, the smells in the air were good. "Kitsune ramen," he asked politely, raising his head. The demon--who looked to all external eyes like a young man in his late teens, black hair, brown eyes, not unattractive--nodded and turned to his equipment. Subaru watched him for a moment, then turned his head to look at the stall's other occupant.

The androgynous redhead slurped up his own noodles and turned green eyes on Subaru, and /he/ wasn't human either. Subaru wondered if there was some section of Tokyo dedicated to demons and if so when he'd wandered into it.

"I'm Minamino Shuuichi," the redhead introduced himself. "He's Urameshi Yuusuke.
You are...?"

"Sumeragi Subaru," Subaru replied. At least he wasn't being attacked, if he was in the wrong sector of town.

The redhead raised a delicate eyebrow. "Of the onmyouji clan?" he asked, surprising Subaru. Most people didn't immediately make the connection... he remembered Sorata and Arashi, who had, and immediately felt sick as a wave of pain and loss suddenly slammed into him.

The owner and his patron both immediately noticed as worry crossed their faces. "Are you okay?" the owner--Urameshi, Subaru remembered, tagging the name to the face in his memory with repetion, like a spell, like he'd been taught--asked.

"No," Subaru mumbled, crumpling to the counter again. Not just Sorata and Arashi, Yuzuriha, too, who had given him a toy when she had visited him in the hospital and extracted a pinky-promise from him. She'd died in the arms of the one she loved best, and Subaru envied that of her, but she was *dead*.... And beautiful Kasumi-san, torn into pieces, her blood as red as her hair. Aoki-san had grieved over her body, screaming, before that scream had been cut short, a gurgle of blood in his lungs.... Subaru stared at his hands. There was blood there too, red and hot and slick, Seishirou-san and others since but never any so important as that first, and Kamui had died too, Kamui, the little brother he'd never had, the chance he'd never had, dying to protect Subaru and others and things he didn't believe in any more--

They were all dead.

A thin keening noise broke from Subaru's throat.

*****

Yuusuke stared, wide-eyed, as the guy at his counter started falling apart in front of his eyes. Sumeragi was doing it quietly, but there was no mistaking the way his body was shaking for anything but tears, and Yuusuke was /not/ good at comforting people.

Kurama, who was watching, sighed softly and pushed his stool back from the counter, tossing a few hundred yen into the basket. He walked over and sat down next to the new customer, laying a hand on his back. Sometimes it really surprised Yuusuke, who knew what a ice-hearted bastard Kurama could be when it suited his needs, to see his friend's gentler side. Kurama's hand stroked up and down the man's back, almost like he was petting a cat. "Shh, shh," he murmured. "It's all right. Cry it out."

Eventually, and probably not surprisingly, the man stopped shaking.

Kurama looked back up at Yuusuke. "I'll take him home to my apartment for the night. He's too out of it to find out where he lives."

"You sure?" Yuusuke asked. "I mean, you don't know him or anything, Kurama."

Kurama flashed him a smile, standing and pulling Sumeragi up as well, one arm draped around Kurama's shoulder. "It's all right, Yuusuke. You might say that we're relatives, though we've never met before."

"Relatives?" Now that Yuusuke thought about it, he could kind of see a resemblance. Sumeragi's green eye was almost the same color as Kurama's, though that still didn't explain the brown eye.

Kurama's eyes twinkled. "I'm his ancestor."