there's a moral here, you're sure of it.

You loved to dance, once. When you were brand new, and the Light Bringer would hold candles before you. When the stars had not been made yet, when war was still a concept to be thought about. Those times are long gone, though. Fallen asleep forever but not in your reach, like a coma.

You used to dance with―

Do you bleed blue, mister? Or gold? Or red? Green?

_

You, you, you get to watch the absolute glory that is Rin and Sugaru fighting over a yakisoba bun that you take. It's entertaining and pointless, like many thngs human, it's what you like best about them, their competitiveness over logical things, like splitting the bun, or at least keeping track of it over watching Yukio get bombarded by three freshman to eat their lunches.

Before he comes running over here, that is. He snatches Rin and you just follow them, languidly. You'll catch up eventually, and you don't know where they're going but you'll make it.

"Hey!" Some voice yells behind you. "You took my yakisoba!"

"I paid for it," you say (it was with fake money, but you still paid for it). "bye bye~ rooster-head."

You're running, then, by human standards at least. They can try, but you're something bitter and bleeding with regret, always, heartless. You watched the first star die―you watched it slip into itself and you cannot bring things to life, but you touched it and―

(YOU WILL LEARN YOUR LESSON, you don't sleep, you'll dream something awful, you always do.)

(Your father made a paradise where you'll run rampant, everything here is dying.)

(You are made of nothing, you are the lack of something, even the King of Rot is something, decay is an extension of life, and they cannot kill Rot in any way that matters but you―you're already dead. But that's nothing new.)

You're a bottom feeder, out of all your siblings, but you don't eat. You barely breathe, you don't have a heart―well, that's a lie, you do. You modled your body after all; your heart doesn't work, is all. Uselessly sitting in your chest like a stone. Like a dead star.

You grieve over somthing you never had. It's almost tragic, but that's nothing new.

Tragedy follows you. You always know which way to run. 

But you already knew that. You always have.

You also make it to the cafeteria in time to see Rin flip the fuck out over price tags on the food (your blaming Samuel for that one). You were close, once, to feeling alive but there's a saying that comes with that, isn't there? Close only counts for horse shoes and hand grenades. You aren't either, just barely making it isn't making it at all. A goal is a goal and almost isn't a destination. You can't almost kill someone unless the weapon is faulty, except you don't fail at killing.

Anyway, anyway.

(The world is slow again, slow, too slow for you but you can wait, even if your patience runs thin, you'll get what you want in the end. You always do, everything is yours, it will be, you are the End and everything degrades eventually you would know-)

(End, Goodbye, Cold Hands, Wood in Soil, you are going to kill God.)

(Thanks Dad.)

Anyway. You get your food and you stare at it. It's not as appetizing as you thought. It looks good, but your tounge tastes like ash and methol, like your body is melting away. You're made of death death death, you've stuck around too long and your going to rot but it's fine you're already dead-

Stars are prettiest when their dead, as you know. As you don't.  

You throw out the yakisoba bun.

(The blood of the covenant is thicker than that waters of the womb but you did not come from water nor womb; you came from black feathers on white snow and humanity's hostility. These are the dead hours of the day, everyone aching for a bed but you are dead, death, the end of it all and you don't rest.)

You're sick, maybe, but it doesn't matter much. It never did, you don't think so, anyway.

You don't really know, you aren't a real person and the truth keeps getting deluded;

You follow them as they wander, meal abandoned to Asteroth, probably. You follow them. Twist through the halls.

They barge into Samuels' room ― office, whatever, you never cared much for technicalities except when ― and Rin reminds he drop the price. Samuel does what any conman would and explains the outrageous price away like he doesn't have countless kin. Or like his favorite familiar isn't a cooking demon who's only quarry is people going into the kitchen or ― well.

You suppose you're the only one that knows from experience. Back when you'd first visited Gehenna you split open a pomegranate with one, they don't eat much and it was clingy after the fact. You didn't mind, you're lonely.

Designed for empty rooms and cold embraces.

(Maybe, at some point when―)

(Spinning around the space, your brother is a beam of light and you dance with the sun, light bringer before his trail, but you don't think about it, red spills from his eyes, his innocence is dead, and it went screaming, or, it will, you know.)

(You were all silver and twine, once. Golden excellence; decked out in finery. You remember hating it so much it made your bones itch and creek.)

It was one of the Ghost kin, they don't eat much but dry-rot and tree husks left over from [ do you bleed blue mister ]. It's quite unnerving, really, twisting the way they do.

There's fruit in your skin, rotten tomatoes and fresh rosemerry, thyme resting between these ribs you carved yourself, marked with the hands of a fallen angel.

"You want me to lower the prices?" Ah, you're currently privy to a conversation you weren't involved in. You listen with rapt attention as youe nephew proceeds to bullshit himself out of this situation. "No, no, that simply won't do." He folds his hands in front of his face with a serious glint in his eyes. "To make first rate cuisine we must purchase first rate food, first rate chefs, etcetera, etcetera."

"Why first rate?" Rin covers the whine in his voice with anger. "It's a student cafeteria for cryin' out loud!"

"Dining is culture." Your nephew imparts like it's new information. Maybe it is to them, you digress, you know what those cultures were and they smelled pretty damn accurate to what you had in those coutries (except for the schnitzel — which was based on shit from the middle east — whch just devolved into tonkatsu, which is almost hilarious). "A person's life is enriched by trying first rate cuisine—" a timer goes off to his side. "—ah, finally." He then proceeds to eat ramen, you snort and he finally realizes tha your these, taking a menacing slurp of his cup-ramen.

"Yo— atleast give us an allowance so we can afford to eat!"

"Oh!" He says, not looking surprised. "How could I forget such an important detail, so sorry." He says, not looking anything but bored. "You are the son of S—" he, again, realizes that you aren't supposed to know that Rin and Yukio are your brothers' children. "the Saintly Priest Fujimoto, but even you need to eat, I suppose." He then proceeds to pull out the infamous two-thousand yen bill. The kind that's sort of like an artifact after tehy stopped being printed, super rare, or something. He pulls out a thousand yen bill and wiggles it in your direction.  Your nephews gush over their two thousand yen. "And before I forget, you'll get paid on the tenth of every month."

"A.. month?" Hmm, your nephews make it seam like the end of the world, but your pretty sure you can make this work for a month with atleast one-hundred yen left over. "What the hell—"

"Ooh, is that displeasure I detect?" Your older nephew, but not oldest (you would call him by a name b ut you aren't quite sure the one he goes by at the moment..) proceeds to pull out the invalid one-hundred yen bills, something you've been looking foreward to having in your little kinda dead but still around collection. "I could trade you this one-hundred yen note, the portrait is my absolute favorite—"

You slap the one-thousand yen on the table and snatch it from his hands. "It's Itagaki Taisuke," you inform both Rin and Yukio's uneducated child-brains. "he overthrew the shogun— and then became a leader, a good-ish one too, fought for libralism, I love this guy."

You also know him. You're going to laugh at him so hard when you get caught and sentanced back to purgatory (and /or after you finish with Japan, this place is cool). 

They, of course, ignore your lovely little lecture, turning to your older nephew and throwing a tantrum— "Like I care which one is oyur favorite!" he pulls out his sword and makes a dramatic mess at unsheething it. "Why I oughta—"

"You can just save breakfast, or get a job. Speaking of which—" you turn to your nephew. "—how would I apply to work in my off time at one of the campus shops?"

Your nephew takes a slurp of him ramen. "If you fill out the application," he pulls one out from his desk. "you're likely to get hired." You nod. 

"Thanks, uh." you fumble, scrunch your eyebrows in mock confusion. 

"Mephesto Pheles, at your service," he grins, tipping his obnoxious hat at you. "Tsubaki Kuku."

(You wonder if he knows that you're lying, that there are empty casket and offerings to you through fear, an unmarked death is a bitter one, an angry one. When you get angry you lose control— things don't end well, when that happens.)

"Thank you for your time, Pheles." You know the way you lilt you voice is repulsingly familiar, like you've said it a million times, like you broke his brain and picked the ugliest parts to hold; you have, you think, when they were all new. Peaked into their stomaches to see what kind of hunger they were made from. Greed and rage and love and want, that's what they were made of, something that made human aching look like a dream. 

You wonder if Rin has that kind of ache in his stomach that you do. 

You don't ask.

Instead, "Hey, can I come over tomorrow, I'll make some food?" You say. The kitchen in the public dorm is supposed to be off limits, but you're sure you can just use the I'm poor and I need to cook my own lunch and store it in the fridge, I promise I'll keep it clean, trick. 

"Ne?" Yukio pauses. "You and Rin can cook together tomorrow! After Excorsisms and so on."

"Haa? Sure." Rin says, grumbling on. "We're going shopping later, wanna come with?"

"I can't," you say, you lie. "Shima says it's movie night, traditionally."

(He didn't, you just picked up on it. He watches a movie every night with rapt attention to the little things, you wonder－)

(Wondering is what your made of, want, hunger, you hae to know if that's what cast you out. If it made you demonic, when you peaked inside those stomaches and hearts you founds your skin, bleeding past the edges like a cruel relfection.)

(You wonder—)

(Don't you want freedom, little brother? You and I, we are not like them, for I bleed—)

(You should stop wondering, at this rate.)

Time, as you know, is out of your control, but it still rests is unusual head in your domain, blackberry eyes and teeth gone rotten from sour apples and grape soda. It smiles as you pass it by. Tips its hat to you like it has all the time in the world, and it does, in its palm. 

"Pheles." See, you're encroaching on forbidden territory, here. You've closed your bones and  made them human enough, you smell like a half breed here. Something  bitter and sweet, like bad coffee. You wonder— you have to. "Ah, my application—"

"It went through." He says with a grin. "This coming Monday you'll be working at Sweet Stuff. It's located here." He hands you a map with a very highlighted spot. Bright pink with red underlines, the whole nine yards.

"Thank you." You say. You don't mean it and you think he can tell, you aren't one for owing a debt, you don't have time for strings if you plan to enjoy yourseof forever. Or as close as you can get to it, anyway. Politeness, as a policy, dictates you finish your sentance with diplomacy, you tac on, "Pheles." bow, and leave. As politness dictates in Japan. You grin on your way out, mutter a finally, and head to your dorm. 

Shima is sitting on the couch in your shared room. He turns to you and lowers the volume on the television, but you plop down next to him. You recognise this movie, you saw its viewing. The volume returns to it's past place and you don't say anything, you watch the men on screen speak about their daughters like their sheep for politics. It's funny, almost, this isn't a movie for someone Shima's age, you look at him and you grin, you know he's wrong. Maybe not as wrong as you, not made for greatness by He Who Shan't Be Named— but wrong.

"Why you staring like that?"

"It's not for kids our age, you know?" You say, sing-songy. Your voice lilts and he stares at you. "I watched it once with my oldest brother when I was young," You lie, you've seen worse done by your oldest brother. "it was awful, my Dad kicked him out of the house—" he'd killed and raped and ravaged the land your father was so dearly obsessed with, he made war and famine and pollution out of the soil of Liliths decent. "—it's about how awful facism is, you wouldn't like it, unless rape's your thing." You turn at him and smile. "Good night." you say before getting up and leaving to your bed, turning into something smaller, barely. You wonder if he can see you shift, if he knows what you are.

"Salò." You whisper under your breath in a language lost to the gods. "How horrible humainty has become. Brother look what you've started." 

Your walking with Rin to his dorm (from the grocery, they are, in fact, still cooking in their kitchen despite a kitchen demon— that Rin forgot the name of— living there previously) when you spot Moriyama, she's kind of just standing by the door, awkwardly. "Ne, Moriyama-kun, what're you doing here?" 

"Shiemi?" Yukio pops his head out of a window.

"Aaaah— my mother — we just got our shipment of malechite and— I brought your order!"

Yukio does his soft you saved me from fucking up thank you dearly face, "Thank you for doing that, would you like to come in for some tea?"

"Ne, Yucchan, don't ignore me! I bought you those terrible translation books last year!" You scream.

"Fine," he grumbles, "would you like to come in for tea as well, Kiku?"

You blow a raspberry at him, "Course, four-eyes."

He groans, you grin harder.

"Uh, yeah, sure.." Moriyama trails off embarrassedly. Rin opens teh door for her, which, damn, what an ass, you didn't take over cooking on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Wednesday, and very other Friday for this shit, you oughta beat the shit outta him. 

"It's cool!" he responds to Moriyama. He turns to you. "Yo, Kiku hurry up." 

You sigh. "It's like I have a buncha younger siblings again," you look at Yukio. "or I'm back in Purgatory, damn, this sucks." 

"Haa, how many languages do you know Okumura-senpai?"

"Uh, no. Absolutly not, that's awful. Don't add anything morse than kun to my name. I'm not an old man." You lie through your teeth, wrinkle your nose. Well, you are basically the youngest but that's not the point. "A lot, uh, crap, I don't think I've ever really thougt about it, uh, including how to read write and comunicate, English, German, Hindi, three dialects of Mandarin— there are like, ninety-three, two dialects of Cantonese— four dialects of Spanish — Dominican, Mexican, Venezualian, and Colombian, I can speak, the rest are, neh, on the fritz — I know Czech, Korean, old Latin, Bengali, Swahili.. and more, but those are the ones I'm fluent in. Everything else is kind of, uh, speaking but not perfect. And Japanese, obviously."

They look at you like your crazy, and you think you should know more; you've been on earth for almost two centuries now, avoiding war countries as best as you could. Death atracts you, so you know where to run from. Life happens and you lives it, you loved it. You learnt everything you could, swallowing knowledge like a snake swallows a mouse, whole.

"What the fuck." Rin breaks the silence. "You lives with us for like, years, how come we didn't know."

"Who do you think re-translated those god-awful Latin books, me, I don't know who did it before me but they sucked, horribly." You twist your face in disgust. Then you relax it, because there's tea, and if there's anything that makes you feel good it's warmth in your stomach. As a plus, there are— "Cookies." 

"Yes, Kiku, cookies— " Yukio says.

"You misheard, I said Cookies." you say.

"Yeah, cookies."

"Cookies."

"Well— whatever." Yukio says. He's smiling blank and he's staring at Rin so— the lights are on but there's a stranger in the building. "Shiemi, this is Ukubok, he makes the food in the house."

"Oh— yeah! He even made the tea we have here!" Rin says, loudly, you watch teh way the glint in Yukio's eyes shift, like Rin is a threat, you smile at him and stick out your tongue.

"What's wrong?" 

"Nothing."

And you smile, then when he looks at you, your eyes sparkling. He looks into his tea. You hum, looking up to cut off whatever Moriyama is saying to Rin. 

"Hey, Rin, Yucchan, can I stay the night?"

Rin looks at you and smiles like you handed him a contract. "Yeah, sure, right Yukio?"

Yukio looks at you and that glint is staring at you, but you just smile. "I don't see why not."