"You've been angry for a while now." Rin commented as he batted away the balls being shot at him from the machine. He and Yukio were in the training room. Rin had a different schedule for Cram School that eliminated any classes with skills he wouldn't be taking the Exorcist Qualification Exam for.

"I'm not angry." Yukio denied immediately.

"Nah, you're pissed. Whenever you get angry, Nii-chan always knows." Rin lilted, teasing.

"At most, you were only born a couple of hours before me. Please don't try to act like an older brother." Yukio snorted.

"Pfffft, I may not give a shit about anything or anyone in particular, but I'm still allowed to be your older brother." Rin scoffed.

"You shouldn't have been so quick to draw the sword! Your classmates hate you and you're under surveillance now!" Yukio finally snapped at him.

"And?"

Yukio paused. "I can't believe you. How can you live like that?! Not caring, not feeling any emotions. You don't even feel upset over your classmates hating you, and you probably didn't even like them in the first place! You never listen to me and you do anything you can to irritate me. You do whatever the hell you want with no feelings of regret or remorse when you hurt others or yourself!" Yukio looked at him through the grate.

"Easy: Someone wanted to hurt me and they succeeded. They did so well, in fact, that I can't even feel remorse for stressing you out so much." Rin's voice was soft like Yukio had never heard before. "I've never felt sorry for being like this, though. It's not my fault I'm like this. As much as I wish sometimes that I could understand people better, I just can't, and that's my life. There's nothing I can do about that, Yukio. But this," Rin glanced around the training room, at his sword. "This is nice. I have something to do with myself that isn't so boring and pointless. The contentment I feel from being productive and the satisfaction of fighting someone that might be able to beat me are the strongest emotions I've felt in a long time."

Yukio looked at him and saw he was smiling just slightly.

He rolled his eyes.

"You heard about my deal with the Vatican? I'm safe for now. If I don't pass, then I'll die. Either way, I don't really care. Think of it this way: you can finally be rid of the horrid, heartless thing called your brother and it can be just Yukio." Rin shrugged nonchalantly, like he hadn't just said he didn't mind being executed if he failed to uphold his end of the unfair deal.

"Boy, that sounds lonely." Shura said before Yukio could respond,  making her entrance with a big bag that smelled strongly of wax.

"Nice jammies, Boobzilla." Rin commented. "Whatever, you're the one looking too comfortable with your tail out like a monkey." The woman shot back.

"That's my cue to leave." Yukio got up and left, so it was only Rin and Shura in the training room.

"Yay! Now we don't have Scaredy to spoil our fun!" Shura cheered. "Now, onto training." Turns out the bag was filled with a shit-ton of candles, which explained why it smelled like someone melted fifty boxes of crayons in it.

"Light the wicks of the candles on the outside, but not the middle one." She ordered. Rin frowned. He didn't like his flames. They were hard for him to co trol precisely. Whenever he used them, troublesome things happened and got him into shit he didn't sign up for.

"Oh don't give me that pouty face! It's easy. Just think something like 'Pop!' Like the spark on a lighter or somethin'." Shura explained. Rin sighed and began concentrating, sitting across cross on the floor of the training room.

At first, he couldn't even summon the flames. Then, he summoned too much of them and they melted the candles into puddles of wax over and over again. Shura watched for a short while, wondering how this kid had seemingly infinite patience. Someone with detachment as strong as Rin's would surely get at least a little annoyed if they couldn't accomplish something, couldn't they? But Rin was living proof that that apparently wasn't the case.

He sat there in the same spot, unmoving aside from his tail, lighting the candles and burning them over and over and over again for hours.

Finally, Shura's ringtone went off.

"Huh? Yes, he's here with me. Yeah, still. He hasn't even moved from that same spot. He also hasn't eaten, come to think of it. What's that? Yeah. Okay. Yup. See ya over there. Later Scaredy." She put her phone back in her pocket and stood up, stretching.

She poked Rin's shoulder and he looked up at her in question. "Come on, I have a mission. There's been an incident at Northern Cross and I gotta take you with me since I'm your guard. I'll pick up some food on the way."  She told him. Rin got up and stretched, looking sourly at the candles.

"Aw, it's okay. Next time." Shura couldn't help but feel bad for the kid. He may not have seemed irritated for the couple hours he'd sat trying to light those candles, but he was obviously vexed by the fact that he couldn't control his fire when it seemed like such a simple task.

§~•~§~•~§

Rin stayed back with the Senior Exorcists and the sick while Shura helped the Doctors and Yukio went inside the building to investigate. He didn't feel like doing anything else after expending most of his energy and patience on those stupid candles.

So, he sat on the curb away from the sick, eating his burger and fries. Fast food was something he rarely ate since he could usually only stand to eat his own food. His taste buds had always been super sensitive to tarts and he'd had a hard time eating things until he'd perfected his own cooking skills so he could enjoy food.

So usually, he hated fast food. But somehow, he found this meal delicious. Maybe it was because he hadn't eaten out in years and forgot what food that wasn't his tasted like. Maybe trying to control his fire so much fried his taste buds. There was no way to know.

Out of nowhere, his sensitive hearing picked up shouting and gunshots from inside the building Yukio had gone into. Okay, now he was interested. He wrapped up and set down his half eaten burger and sprinted to the rickety building. He decided going up stairs and down hallways was too much work, so he climbed the outside, using window sills and old air conditioners as hand and foot holds.

It seemed he had perfect timing bursting through the wall, because he hit the old guy who'd called him a kid before. He actually kicked him right in the side. Yukio had his gun out, the sick little boy behind him. Once Rin got a proper look at Todou, he realized what had happened. Todou was possessed by some kind of demon. He had his hazmat suit off and appeared to be immune to the weak miasma floating around, like Rin.

The older man tried to recover, but Rin jumped on him. The man fell to his knees in surprise, grappling with the half-demon. He finally found the strength to throw Rin off of him and tried to make a run for it. Rin grabbed his ankles and dragged him back. He glanced over to see if Yukio and the kid were out. Thankfully, they were.

Todou eventually got sick of fighting Rin when some alarm went off and claws slid out, stabbing the half-demon in the chest. Rin groaned. They'd gone deeper than expected and carved into the muscle of his chest. Todou was able to make his escape, leaving Rin groaning on the floor. He barely made it out the window before the whole place imploded on itself.

Yukio had returned the kid to his mom after giving him a vaccine. The mother was hugging Yukio and thanking him. Rin went back and retrieved his food, which surprisingly wasn't stolen.

"Rin, how did you know I needed help?" Yukio wondered. "I didn't. I wanted to see what happened since you had to use your gun." Rin answered. Yukio seemed shocked, for some reason. Rin didn't know why, because Yukio knew him. He caught Yukio muttering, "But you were right on time...."

Rin offered him some fries to shut him up and Yukio took them. They sat there for a few minutes, sharing the fast food in silence.

Shura had summoned some Naga to track down the stolen Left Eye of the Impure King. Yukio was supposed to be on the team following the snake demon when they departed. Rin thought having the dorm to himself would be nice.

§~•~§~•~§

"Get up and start packing, kid." Shura tapped his shoulder. "Why?" He asked. He was in the middle of picking out a new knife to carry around since he'd lost the first one during the fight with Amaimon in the forest.

"You're coming with me to Kyoto. You can't go anywhere without a guard and I'm the one here and they want me there. So I gotta bring you along. Pack your stuff. Then we'll go to the train station." She explained briefly, pulling him up. He sighed. Of course he couldn't just stay here and enjoy his summer break without his brother nagging at him for once.

He got up and began packing. Shirts, pants, hoodie, other necessities. He spotted his favorite belt–a belt he'd gotten as a present from Mephisto after the Trial that had sheathes to hold knives lining it. He debated leaving it behind, but ended up taking it. It might be useful. He finished packing his things and was ready to go.

§~•~§~•~§

Rin stared uncaringly back at the pissed look on Suguro's face when he saw the half-demon already in the train car designated for the ExWires, examining one of his knves he'd sheathed in his belt.

"Why the hell are you here?!" The taller teen growled. "My guard is needed and I have to go everywhere she goes, so I have no choice." Rin  responded.

"B-Bon, please don't start anything." Konekomeru was quaking. It probably wasn't helping that Rin flashed his fangs just to mess with the short boy.

"I know, I know." The teen grumbled, moving to sit behind Rin.

"Really? You complain about my being here and hate my guts, but you sit behind me? That makes no sense." Rin shook his head. Suguro looked like he was going to blow a fuse and Rin was tempted to laugh. This was too fun. Suguro was easily pissed off at the smallest of things.

"You shut your mouth, demon!" Suguro barked. Rin really did laugh that time before whipping around, the knife in his hand poised right in front of Suguro's face.

"Why don't you take your own advice? My patience for today has already run out, so I don't feel like dealing with you and your whining over things that don't matter or affect you at all." He gave a dry smile. Suguro looked down at the knife blade and gulped.

Shiemi was looking worriedly between them from across the car, having come in during the argument. Something was wrong with Rin.

Normally, he was uncaring and calm. Now, he was being scary and threatening. But she could see through it. It was a front. Something was different about the look in his eyes. Deep down, no matter how small, a part of him was hurting. It was tired and hurting, even if he didn't know it.

Yukio had told her that Rin was emotionally detached. He'd said that meant that Rin had no feelings. That he was heartless. He told her just to give up on Rin. And that was when Shiemi swore that she'd get through to Rin, no matter what. Even if he thought she was annoying, she'd still follow him around and be nice to him, no matter what.

Kamiki came in and sat down next to Rin and Shiemi smiled. Kamiki at the least seemed to understand Rin a little bit. She even gave a whole speech about people having demon blood and working for the Order. She also called out Suguro, who tried to get up and snap back at her, but Rin jumped up before him and held his knife at the boy's throat.

"I'm not going to hold another one of those damn Bariyon on my lap, and if you wake her up, I'll cut you." He threatened in harsh whispers, alluding to Shura napping in the seats a few town in front of them. Shiemi giggled. He was probably bluffing. He wouldn't hurt Suguro. Suguro was his friend!

The rest of the ride was spent on tense silence until they got to the train station in Kyoto.

§~•~§~•~§

A woman who had the same hair and angry goblin expression as Bon when angry greeted them and accepted a gift from Shura before most of the group split up to go do things after she gave her son an earful for frying his hair like a rooster's. That would be stored in Rin's mind for blackmail if he ever needed it.

He was told to go ask a teacher what to do after not being allowed around the sick and went full circle to all the Cram School teachers until he gave up. Eventually, an old man that also looked similar to Suguro asked him to cut watermelon. Looking at his robes that were much nicer than any of the other men around the temple, Rin figured he was the High Priest–Suguro's dad.

"So you and Ryuji must be friends then?" The man asked hopefully. Rin shook his head. "No. He doesn't like me very much." He answered.

"Ah, you too huh? He and I are kind of in the middle of a spat too. He's a hard one to get along with." Tatsuma sighed.

"He's a jerk and gets angry at the tiniest things. It's annoying and makes it almost impossible to get along with him." Rin pointed out. "Wow, you're frank." Tatsuma blinked in surprise.

"Your wife said that when I told her she was pretty." Rin said offhandedly. Tatsuma laughed. Rin recognized the smell of alcohol on his breath immediately.

"It's a little early to be drinking. Do it at night when no one can see you." Rin told him. "Ah, I've been found out! It's so hot outside today, I just couldn't resist!" Tatsuma laughed.

"You kind of remind me of Shiro." Rin said. "Shiro? Fujimoto?" Tatsuma wondered. Rin nodded, side-eying him.

"Oh, so you must be his son!" Tatsuma recalled the mentioned 'demonic' baby boy in one of Shiro's letters to him a long time ago. Looking at that same boy now, he realized Shiro had meant that literally and not that Rin was a difficult kid to care for. "Okumura Rin. My brother is probably the one you want. He's the people pleaser." Rin didn't look up from the melons as he spoke, cutting the first one evenly in half.

"Oh, there's another one?" Tatsuma seemed genuinely shocked. Rin nodded.

"Yukio my fraternal twin. People call him a genius. Became an Exorcist at thirteen. He got in on a scholarship to True Cross, just like Suguro. He's just like the rest of them now. Prick, stick up his ass, never relaxes or eats properly, always nagging at me 24/7 for saying what no one else will." Rin explained, cutting the halves into fourths.

"Heh, you two don't get along with him either, eh? You sound like you're worried about him. And what about you? How'd you get into True Cross?" Tatsuma wondered.

"I'm not worried about him, I'm saying he's an idiot and if he doesn't want help, then I won't give it to him." Rin corrected bluntly, slicing the melon in smaller slices. Tatsuma winced at the harsh words.

"I didn't want to go to highschool. But Shiro died and Mephisto promised him to be our guardian if anything happened to him, so I have to go to his stupid school and try to fit in with all the rich assholes who used to try and jump me in the streets. He's doing an absoloute shit job at being a Dad–Shiro would be proud of how neglectful he is of me." Rin drawled.

"So what makes you so different from everyone else, hm?" The old priest pressed curiously.

"Well, when I was six, there was in incident that gave me bad PTSD for a short time and then I completely shut down and the next time I visited the psychologist, she declared me severely emotionally detached due to trauma at such a young age. It means I don't really feel emotions much, don't sympathize with people, and I don't help people unless they ask because I don't give a shit. If things get too troublesome or diffult, I just leave. It's easy for me to drop things like that." Rin explained.

He didn't sound resigned, didn't sound annoyed or sad. Didn't sound happy or overjoyed either. This poor boy didn't know what it was like to feel....

"And you've never re-learned how to feel emotions to their full extent since? Isn't that sad?" Tatsuma questioned. "I wouldn't know." Rin shrugged.

With a jolt, Tatsuma realized he needed to go and complete his duties for the day. So he got up, said good-bye, and left Rin with the watermelons.

§~•~§~•~§

Rin watched the five adults fight amongst the sick. Suguro stepped in and put up a shield between the snake women and the men who looked like carbon copies of Shima with different hair colors. He yelled at them for spreading discord within their ranks when they were dealing with an unknown enemy. Surprisingly, the lead snake woman back-talked him and Rin thought she was in for it, but Suguro just took the insult to his father and himself and agreed with her. So much for respecting your parents. Suguro was anything but respectful to anyone who didn't fit what he thought they should be.

As the teen turned away to leave and Rin walked in to give out watermelon, the half-demon snickered. "I hope you realize that you're taking it like wimp just letting her walk on you like that, not taking it like a man." He commented. Oh, that got him going.

"You keep your mouth shut, you lying heathen!" Suguro spat,glaring daggers as Rin gave out fruit and recieved compliments.

Rin bent down to give the adults who'd been fighting earlier some melon slices. "Oi, don't give them a treat! They could have hurt somebody!" Suguro snapped. Rin gave him a deadpan stare. "I was told to give these to the sick. I'm doing my job." He said plainly. "Oh, you're nice, mister!" One of the younger snake girls chirped. The one next to her even patted his head. He almost snorted. I'm not a dog....

"Besides, who told you to hand those out anyways?! Wait, I bet you stole them, didn't you?!" The older teen continued rambling on, not noticing the demon had already stopped listening. He kept on talking until:

"I bet you probably poisoned them. You're probably trying to kill the people in this room right n-hggghh?!" He nearly choked as Rin took a slice of watermelon and shoved it in the boy's mouth. "That's a little overdramatic, Suguro. Calm down, I don't even want to be here, but I have to. If you don't like me, literally just don't talk to me." Rin said.

"G-Get away from Bon!" Konekomeru ran forward, attempting to grab Rin's wrist and wrench it away from his friend. Key word: attempting. Rin stepped back and turned to walk past them, easily dodging the hand reaching for him. "Woah, he's fast!" Shima gasped as Rin brushed last them and out of the room.

§~•~§~•~§

While Izumo was with Shiemi as the blomde cried in the garden, she saw Rin on the roof above. He was trying to light candles with his flames, but the flames kept burning the entire candles. It seemed Rin was actually annoyed. He looked to be frowning just slightly. How long had he been doing that?

"Hey, I said light the wicks, not the rooftop!" Kirigakure-sensei's voice rang out from behind him. Rin sighed and ran a hand through his already messy hair.

Izumo scoffed. Suguro and the others were just being dumb. This guy never did anything worth getting pissy over! He was lazy and didn't particularly care about anyone or anything. So what was the point in hating him? He'd saved their asses, hadn't he? That was just about the only real thing he'd done for them, but it was huge.

She got back to picking herbs and insulting Shiemi.

§~•~§~•~§

Later in the day, Rin finally did it. He thought of the spark from a lighter and there it was. He lit the wicks perfectly. He stared intensely, daring the flames to flicker out of control, but they didn't.

"Shura, I did it." He called, a tired note to his voice as he yawned. The woman closed her book and was shocked to see the candles lit perfectly. "Wh-I missed it! Do it again!" She demanded.

Rin scowled and turned back. He pinched the wicks to put them out. He wasn't fully confident he could do it again. He was tired and hadn't eaten since that morning, so his energy was low. And these flames annoyed him.

He concentrated, closing his eyes, and thinking of a lighter spark again. Just a spark.

The candles lit up and stayed, flickering. "Woah....you did it!" Shura cheered. Rin gave a half smile. He just wanted to eat and then sleep. Shura hugged him tightly and he supposed he should reciprocate at least a little so she didn't bat him on the head with her book, so he leaned his head on her shoulder in a half-assed hug. It wasn't much, but Shura took it. Then she sent Rin down to join the ExWires and get food.

§~•~§~•~§

Rin knew Shura had accidentally switched the bags of juice and alcohol as soon as he'd opened the can, but he wouldn't mind forgetting today because it was a particularly irritating one. So he drank the alcohol willingly, sitting across a path from Shima on a rock.

The alcohol gave him a pleasant buzz and didn't taste too bad, so he kept drinking it. Shima hesitantly moved closer. "You're really not that bad, Okumura-kun. You don't really do anything do you? You're kinda like a guinea pig, actually–boring, but funny when you wanna be." The pink haired boy laughed.

"Sure." Rin answered. His speech was slurred and he looked tired, but that seemed to be the only effect the drink had on him.

"Why don't you do anything? Bon is always trash talking you, you know." Shima claimed, wanting to see the boy's reaction. "I know. But tha's just him bein' a huge dick. He's like a lil' kid with anger issues. Jus' leave 'im be and he'll fuck of eventually. I only mess with 'im 'cuz he reacts so dramatically." Rin answered simply, only properly pronouncing half his words.

"Hah, yeah. I'm supposed to protect him and all, but it's hard when he keeps doing stupid things." Shima sighed. "I think Bon is just mad that you didn't trust us about your dad."

"Pretty sure he hates me 'cuz o' my Dad. Everybody does. It has nothin' ta do with trust at all. He's a huge baby and I'm a guy who only ever has better comebacks than him." Rin slurred, shrugging.

They sat in silence after that. Eventually, Shima realized Rin had fallen asleep sitting up. He chuckled and woke him up to get Rin on his back. He carried the demon boy to his room on his back. Rin surprisingly wasn't that heavy.

Shima decided that Rin wasn't so bad, even if he didn't particularly care for most things or people around him. Because Shima understood that. He only cared for a select few people and while Rin didn't realize it, he cared about Yukio in his own detached way–checking up on him, though it always sounded teasing.

Shims wondered what would happen if Rin had friends that cared about him enough just as he was. Would he learn how to understand a d feel things fully again or would he stay the same e optionally, but understand people better?

Shima decided staying away from Rin was more troublesome than being around him and left to go check up on Bon to see if he'd also drank the alcohol.

DEMONSDEMONSDEMONSDEMONSDEMONSDEMONSDEMONSDEMONS

I myself have a minor case of emotional detachemt because of *ahem* a lot of truama in my preteen years when I was learning how to be a person, so I know how it feels to not understand how people can feel the way they do so strongly when it doesn't seem like a huge deal to me. But the detachment only comes for me when things get too stressful and I just can't deal with the anxiety(so you can imagine quarantine is going with me trying to keep up with school). *Anxiety Prime*

My detachment used to be much worse, though I was never officially diagnosed bc my parents are typical millennials who believe there's no way their kids could be messed up. It's taken me around four years to this day to really get back to feeling and understanding things the way I should, so it is possible for detached people to re-learn emotions. With Rin, it may be more difficult because he's grown up with that and still can't even remember what happened to cause it due to the memories being so traumatizing that they're very deeply repressed.

Anyway, I hope y'all are enjoying the updated version of this story.