Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/12179862.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Major_Character_Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
  Category:
      Multi
  Fandom:
      終わりのセラフ_|_Owari_no_Seraph_|_Seraph_of_the_End
  Relationship:
      One-sided_Hiiragi_Mahiru/Hiiragi_Shinya, Hiiragi_Mahiru/Hiiragi_Shinya/
      Ichinose_Guren, Hiiragi_Shinya/Ichinose_Guren
  Character:
      Hiiragi_Shinya, Hiiragi_Mahiru, Ichinose_Guren, Hiiragi_Kureto, Hiiragi
      Seishirou, Hiiragi_Shinoa, Goshi_Norito, Juujou_Mito, Yukimi_Shigure,
      Hanayori_Sayuri
  Additional Tags:
      Alternate_Universe_-_Canon_Divergence, Alternate_Universe_-_Soulmates,
      Unrequited_Love, Angst, set_in_canon_verse_but_very_much_not_canon
      compliant
  Stats:
      Published: 2017-10-20 Updated: 2017-12-09 Chapters: 4/? Words: 13205
****** White Blood ******
by silver_fish
Summary
     Shinya's soulmate mark is white, like the wings of the angel that he
     loves.
     But her wings were never made to be anything but bloodied and broken,
     a painful product of the fall she was always destined to make.
Notes
     this is another fic i've had in the works for a very long time.
     really, it's quite out of my comfort zone, but i want to take a stab
     at it anyway! updates will be biweekly, coming on thursdays! please
     heed the content warnings before reading, and if, at any point, you
     feel i've dealt with sensitive topics poorly, please feel free to let
     me know.
     thanks to meghan for beta reading chapters for me!
See the end of the work for more notes
***** Prologue *****
Chapter Notes
     this is just a little prologue to sort of set the stage. my apologies
     for its shortness! future chapters will be longer!
Mahiru’s mark is broken.
That’s what Kureto tells her, when she is four years old and he is six.
“You’rebroken,” he tells her.
She cries, as if the words hurt her.
The seashell that marks her wrist is beautiful. It’s the cleanest white there
is, bright and shining. She figures that must mean that her soulmate will be
bright and shining, too.
There is one flaw in the design:
Down the centre of the shell, there is a large crack. The line is crimson, red
like the blood that leaks from her palm when Seishiro drags a knife against her
skin, spurred on by morbid childhood curiosity.
“You’re broken,” she tells herself, when she is five years old, already losing
her sanity to a house haunted by demons and human experimentation.
Hiragi Mahiru is only five years old when she meets her soulmate.
He is a boy from a lower branch family, from a family of so-called scum. She is
far too young to understand the complexities of these things, though, and so
she sees a boy training, a boy working hard to be strong, and she is curious.
She is only five years old, after all, and he is only five, too.
But she supposes she is drawn to him for a reason. Even as the years go by, she
can only assume that she found him because of the deeper forces of their
intertwined soulmate magic.
They meet that first time, watching in wonderment as their marks glow golden in
response to each other. Mahiru hopes that she imagines the fear that flashes in
his eyes.
“Mahiru,” she says suddenly.
She does not share her family name.
“Guren,” he says, guarded.
Guarded.
They are only five years old.
After that, they spend many hours together. They’re just kids. They’re destined
to spend their lives together.
It’s supposed to be perfect.
Guren’s mark depicts a white lily.
It is blood-stained.
“It’s ugly,” she murmurs.
He watches as her fingers ghost over the skin on the inside of his wrist.
“Is it?” he wonders. “I thought it was beautiful.”
“Why?”
“It’s your mark,” he says. “Of course it would be beautiful.”
She laughs, as if this is something that brings her great joy.
“Maybe it just means you’re human,” he suggests. “Humans bleed. That’s not a
bad thing.”
“But if you bleed to much, you die.”
“You can’t die until you’ve lived,” he reminds her.
Their time is limited, though. Only weeks after they speak, they’re caught by
the wrong people.
Mahiru is dragged away. Guren is beaten for his insolence.
“He’s my soulmate!” she screams, but her words fall to deaf ears.
The next years of her life are miserable, frankly.
At four years old, she was taught the basics of the violin. After she is forced
away from Guren, she finds solace only in the sounds of her notes against the
strings.
They call her a genius. She is a natural at everything she does. Her senses are
sharper than everyone else’s.
She has a demon brewing inside of her.
At nine years old, her sister is born.
At nine years old, she decides that she will keep her sister safe, above all
else.
She begins to understand the symbolism of Guren’s soulmate mark.
White lilies.
“They use them in funerals,” Kureto says.
“When have you ever been to a funeral?”
“I haven’t been. I’m just educated.”
He is twelve years old, so of course he knows better than everybody else.
Mahiru’s life is being planned out for her through a child’s death match. To
find her the perfect suitor, her father has assembled the most adapt boys in
the country and thrown them into a pit of hell.
She can’t say it’s too bad, though. Whoever will win will be thrown into a far
worse hell once Tenri’s little death match is through.
This is how she meets Shinya, both of them ten years old and with the hellish
life experiences of people far older.
She insists on meeting him. Some part of her still wants to challenge fate,
even as she knows that fate has already eaten her soul alive.
His mark is perhaps the most grotesque soulmate mark Mahiru has ever seen.
The dove that stretches across his skin is mangled and bloody. Its wings are
white like porcelain, but blood speckles its feathers. Its right wing is bent
completely backwards, rendered entirely useless. Its beak is cracked slightly.
You’re broken,she remembers.
But he seems entirely unbothered by it. He is all smiles. He is cocky.
Overconfident.
He’s not, though, not really.
There is one more thing about his mark:
When she approaches him, it glows golden.
Hers remains the same as it ever does when she is so far away from Guren.
“That’s odd,” she says.
“Fate led me here,” he assures her.
“No,” she says. “Something much crueler led you here.” She turns her nose up to
him. “Fate is cruel, too, apparently. I already have a soulmate.”
He doesn’t respond to her.
They come up with a plan together:
Shinya will become her cover, while she waits until the day she and Guren will
be strong enough to be together, the way they’re supposed to be.
But Mahiru doesn’t know if she’ll make it to there. Her plan to keep Shinoa
safe above all else will hinder things. The older she gets, the more she
notices the demonic presence within her.
She comes to trust Shinya during these painful years. More than her cover, he
becomes her friend.
“What will happen if we get married?” he asks one day. They are twelve years
old. He is splayed out on her bed, staring up at the ceiling, while she plays
her violin.
She lowers her instrument and glances sideways at him.
“We won’t,” she says simply.
“You sound fairly certain of that,” he remarks. “Why is that?”
She looks away from him, and back to her sheet music.
“Every bad song ends eventually,” she says. “The ugliest, raunchiest melodies.
There are people like Father who call such a sound music. These people will be
disappointed as the song finishes.” She turns back to face him again. He has
sat up to stare at her.
“The rest of us,” she says, “will be grateful.”
He considers her carefully.
“Fine,” she says. “The end.”
Death, inevitably.
“When you end a piece of music,” she continues, “you leave an impression. You
end it with something big.” Her lips twitch slightly at him. “That’s what you
and I have to do.”
“Something big,” he echoes. “Bang.”
She laughs. “Exactly. Bang.”
They’re co-conspirators in a twisted world. If they have nobody else, then at
least they can always be certain that they have each other.
Mahiru knows that she’s manipulating Shinya, in a sense. She doesn’t love him,
but he is destined to love her. She’s leading him on, maybe, making him believe
that he can win her over with emotions alone.
Her emotions are wild, raging things. She is chaos incarnate.
Her desires are like serpents within her mind. They constrain her. They
overtake her.
They grow progressively harsher over time.
By the time they’re entering high school, Mahiru has begun to put her plans
into action. She fights with Shinoa’s demon, the creature akin to her own that
her poor baby sister was born with.
“What does the future look like, Mahiru?”
She smiles. She knows it looks far sweeter than it feels.
“It looks like Hell,” she says.
He laughs, charmed. “Maybe death would be a nicer exit, huh?”
“Maybe it’s like salvation,” Mahiru agrees. “But, Shinya, we’re selfish people.
Keep living with me. One day I’ll gift you with a future of gold.”
The dove on his forearm, which shines a dull gold always within Mahiru’s
presence, catches both of their attention for a moment.
He looks up and meets her eyes.
“My gold or your gold?”
His voice is frigid.
“Can’t we have both?” she asks.
He snorts. “Idealist.”
“Realists never get anywhere in life,” she says. “The only place realists wind
up is six feet under with nothing to their name.”
“And what are you going to do, Mahiru?”
“I’m going to save the world,” she says. “To make our golden future. A place
where darkness can’t touch us.”
“When you say it like that, I almost believe it’s possible.”
“It is possible,” she says. “This year will be our year, Shinya.”
There are old legends about soulmates. That only a person’s soulmate, their
very reason for living, can be their inevitable downfall.
“I thought the future looked like Hell.”
She laughs.
“It does. But there are golden flames in Hell, too, you know.”
After that day, Hiragi Shinya never looks at Hiragi Mahiru the same way again.
She is not his betrothed. Rather, she is some kind of devil inside of her body.
At times, the Mahiru that Shinya knows and loves shines through, as golden as
ever, but those times grow rarer and rarer.
He finds, quickly, that he is the only one who notices, except for Mahiru
herself, who lulls herself to sleep at night beneath the mournful melody of her
own tragedy.
***** Chapter 2 *****
Chapter Notes
     hi!! so here's the actual first chapter, and here's where it's going
     to deviate from canon significantly already lol. i'm excited to get
     to post this!! and happy november !! i started nano yesterday with
     this, and i'm hoping to go above and beyond and get this thing at
     least halfway finished by the end of the month!! (by the way, if you
     want to be my buddy on nano, you can find me here! also, i'm working
     on getting up my playlist for this fic. i just need to brush it up a
     bit before i publish it, so expect that along with the next update
     (it'll prob be mostly instrumental but)!! on that note, i really hope
     you enjoy this chapter!! thanks for all the support on the first <3
Shinya thinks that his life started when he met Mahiru.
She was like a light in the darkness. His soulmate. She made his world shine
golden, like a sunrise or something likewise. If he was midnight and she was
midday, then together they created a holy lifetime of light and dark.
Perfectly, they were grey.
But Mahiru is not golden anymore.
Mahiru is black, perhaps. Shinya fears that she bleeds the inky blood of a
devil, rather than the white blood of a goddess.
No, Mahiru is not golden. Mahiru lost herself in the tragedy of her name,
perhaps.
Shinya remembers a time, when they were both only just fourteen, that she told
him her premonition for the future:
“When I die,” she said, and he interrupted her with a, “That won’t happen.”
She laughed. “Everybody dies, Shinya. That’s why life is so powerful.”
“We won’t die. Not for many, many years.”
“We will. We both will.” She pressed a gentle hand against his cheek, then.
“When I die,” she said, “I want to die alongside Guren.”
“You can’t choose that.”
“I can,” she said. “And when we both die, you’re going to die, too.”
“I can live without you, Mahiru.”
But she merely smiled at him. “Can you, though?”
No, Mahiru is not golden.
But he knows this, and he knows it well: he loves Mahiru.
He loves her, despite the darkness that envelops her. Despite her fraying
humanity. Despite her blackening blood.
Shinya knows that Mahiru holds a power over him that other people could never
even fathom. He knows that she uses him to further her own ends. He knows this,
and he lets her do it.
If he thinks about what the dove on the inside of his wrist represents, he
guesses that it is supposed to mean that his fate is to be Mahiru’s pawn on
Mahiru’s chessboard for life.
The dove is broken in every way possible. Perhaps it will heal in time and
learn to fly again, but it will always hold its wing a little more tenderly,
reminiscent of when it was broken.
Such a destruction can only be called irreparable.
But maybe his metaphorical wing was broken long before he met Mahiru. Maybe his
life ended when his parents allowed the Hiragis to take him and put him into
their little death match. Maybe Mahiru took his broken wing and bandaged it
up—not healing it, but giving it the illusion that it is better.
So, maybe his life started when he met Mahiru.
According to Mahiru, his life will end with her, too.
“Don’t forget me,” she implores of him one day.
“How could I possibly forget you?”
“No,” she says. “Don’t forget me.”
And that is the end of it, because Shinya does not understand.
Their first day of high school brings Shinya to a crossroads.
One path will lead him to Mahiru. Sad, tragic, broken Mahiru.
The other path will lead him to Ichinose Guren. Mahiru’s soulmate.
He chooses the one that he thinks will lead him back to the other:
On their first day of high school, Shinya chooses Ichinose Guren.
                                      ***
He first recognizes him by name alone.
Mahiru has spoken of this boy that hung stars in her nighttime sky since she
was a little girl.
“One day, he’ll be strong enough to rescue me from this,” she told Shinya,
once. They were twelve years old, awake in the night because neither of them
had ever been able to sleep.
“Why do you need him to rescue you?” Shinya asked. “You’re not a damsel,
Mahiru.”
“I’d like to pretend,” she said. “Pretend that I am. Maybe it would be nice to
be the helpless princess, waiting on her knight in shining armour.”
But Ichinose Guren does not look the part Mahiru so desperately wants him to
play.
He keeps his head down. He is cautious about where he rests his arm. He never
allows people to see his soulmate marking.
Perhaps he is ashamed.
Or perhaps he is afraid.
Shinya doesn’t know which is worse.
In their first class, Shinya sits by him.
It causes a stir, yes (“Shinya-sama, please sit here, not by that scum!”), but
Shinya has never had a problem with doing things that he’s not supposed to.
And, anyway, it’s all for Mahiru, and he has known for many years that he
exists for Mahiru.
As the distress of their classmates and teacher falls away, Shinya turns to
Guren and says, “What are you hiding from?”
Guren merely scowls at him.
“I made a promise to Mahiru,” Shinya continues, and it is here that he stops,
as Guren’s posture changes ever-so-slightly, just enough for Shinya to notice.
He stops, and Guren certainly knows why he stops, because he hastens to look
away.
“I made a promise to Mahiru,” Shinya says again, more quietly this time. “A
long time ago, I promised her that I would meet you, and I would prove to her
that I’m superior to you.”
“Leave me alone,” Guren hisses.
They are sat in the back corner of the classroom. Because of Guren’s status,
there are few people sat very close to him, but those that are, seem to be
trying to listen in on their conversation.
“I decided,” Shinya says, unbothered by their classmates, “that that’s
pointless.”
“I don’t care,” Guren says.
“Don’t you?” Shinya asks, leaning a little closer to him.
Guren doesn’t even respond to him.
And, really, Shinya knows better than to push him when there are people that
are very clearly interested in their conversation.
He leaves it—for now, at least.
As their classes end for the day, though, Shinya catches Guren before he can
leave.
“I don’t know what Mahiru’s said to you,” Guren snaps, “but it’s not true.”
“That’s not very believable,” Shinya says coolly.
“What do you want from me?”
And it is impossible for them not to attract attention, of course. Though
nobody openly says anything, Shinya can see their classmates gathered at the
door to the classroom, refusing to leave it until they’ve found out whatever
the secret between Guren and Shinya is.
But there is no secret, really.
Shinya sighs, and makes his way past Guren, who utters no word of protest at
all.
As word does, the rumours about Guren’s apparent involvement with Shinya move
throughout the school rather quickly, and it is outside the school building
that a small hand grabs his arm with an incredible strength, pulling him back
in irritation.
“What are you doing?” Mahiru demands.
“Nothing, really,” Shinya tells her honestly.
“No, I mean—what are you doing with Guren?”
“Nothing, really,” Shinya says again. “He’s largely unapproachable. Are you
sure he’s—?”
“Shut up!” she hisses, putting a hand over his mouth.
He laughs against her palm, then grabs her wrist gingerly and pulls her arm
away. “Mahiru, won’t you trust me?” he asks. “I’m not completely stupid, you
know.”
Her eyes flash painfully. “Th-that’s not what I’m trying to say,” she says.
“Listen, let’s go get a bite to eat or something, okay? It’s a beautiful day.
It would be a waste to spend it standing around here.”
“I get the feeling like you’re trying to dodge an important topic,” he says.
“I’m not. Just trust me, okay?”
But it’s getting more and more difficult to trust Mahiru at all. Sometimes she
is like this, his best friend, the girl he loves, the powerful but tired Hiragi
heir, and sometimes she is someone else entirely, unsympathetic and cold,
primarily closed off.
She grabs his hand and holds it tightly, and he relishes in the feeling of it.
She is always making a show for the public, of course, but Shinya likes to
pretend, sometimes, that it’s real. He knows that, beneath the sleeve of his
uniform, his soulmate marking glows golden with her presence.
He knows that, beneath the sleeve of her uniform, her soulmate marking remains
the same cracked white he has always known it to be.
But whether it’s real or fake doesn’t matter much, he supposes.
His love for Mahiru is more important about any requited feelings he may or may
not have. And whatever his love may be, exactly, he’s not quite sure yet; in a
way, he isn’t sure if it’s love at all, or rather a painful desperation, an
aching heart and some stupid, broken soulmate mark.
His life is meaningless without Mahiru, he knows. Since his parents left him
for rotten with the Hiragis, he has been fighting to live for her. To serve and
protect her, as her husband, as her best friend. Kept alive by a harsh fate of
never having her love in return, he has managed here, to hold her hand like
this, if only so that other people will believe them to be more than they are.
Mahiru leads him through the city, until they come to a bake shop about half an
hour away from the school. The entire time, she is quiet, walking rather
briskly. He doesn’t bother to try to breech a topic with her, because she
clearly already has one in mind; she just needs a better place to say it, is
all.
They enter the shop, and she asks him to find a seat.
“Are you sure I should leave you alone?” he asks, and he tries to sound
teasing, but, really, his concern is quite real.
She looks at him coldly. “What, you think I can’t take care of myself?”
And that is that, really.
Shinya knows Mahiru quite well, all things considered. She is his purpose,
simply, and so he has taken the past years to get to know her very well. She’s
sweet, deep down, he knows, but she has also been conditioned to be anything
but.
Shinya remembers, a long time ago, when he found her in her room. She was
alone, but she was talking to herself, pacing across the distance of her room.
Her face was tear-stained, but when she looked up to Shinya, he realized that
she wore a scowl.
“Are you okay?” he asked her, because it was all he could think to say.
“Stay away from me,” she snapped.
They were only twelve.
He said, “I can’t.”
She didn’t argue with him after that.
He sat on her bed and, eventually, she sat down beside him. Hesitantly, he put
an arm around her, and she pushed herself against him and began to cry.
She never told him what was wrong, but he supposes, now, that he never really
needed to know.
Life has been cruel to them both, after all.
And he has a suspicion that it has been cruel to Ichinose Guren, too.
Mahiru returns, sitting across from him, and sets a piece of chocolate cake
between them.
He says, “What’s this for?”
“To eat, silly.” She passes him a fork. “We’ll share, and while we do, I want
to tell you a story.”
The truth is, in the past five years, Shinya has heard many stories about Guren
from Mahiru. Forlornly, she would tell him whatever she could, less because she
wanted him to know, he thinks, and more as if she were trying to give herself
something to hold on to.
“One day,” she told him, “we’ll be married.”
Shinya’s heart panged at that.
But he smiled cheekily at her and said, “We’ll see about that.”
She laughed, then. He has always loved her laugh—has always loved its angelic
hum, its golden edge—but sometimes he fears that it is breaking apart, somehow,
like shattered glass, or like the falling of Heaven unto Hell.
“I’ve already made up my mind,” she said. “I doubt I’ll ever change it.”
But as Shinya looks at her now, she no longer looks like the young girl so
certain she would marry Ichinose Guren one day.
Now, she looks rather sad.
She takes a thoughtful bite of the cake, and as she swallows, she says, “I made
a promise to Guren, a long time ago.”
“Did you?” Shinya asks. “A serious one?”
She nods.
“I told him that I would see him again,” she explains. “And that one day, our
days would not be measured by anything but the natural causes that will
inevitably kill us one day.”
Shinya watches her carefully.
She says, “I no longer believe I have the luxury to say how long I will live.”
“Mahiru—”
“But I’m certain of one thing,” she says, “and it’s this: even if I can’t say
how long I’ll live, I can allow Guren a prosperous life.”
“What?”
“I love him,” she says. “Because my mark dictates it, but also because he’s who
he is. It’s been a long time, but I’m still absolutely certain of this.
However—”
And she stops here, looking down at her hands. Shinya doesn’t miss the glint in
her eyes.
“However,” she continues, “because I’m older now, and more mature, I know that
there’s a reason we aren’t meant to be together.”
“…Mahiru?”
She brings her fists down to her lap, and Shinya notes that they are clenched
rather tightly.
“S-so, it’s not fair, no, but we have to leave him be, Shinya. Guren’s path is
his and his alone. I have no right to walk it with him, and neither do you, no
matter what you might think.”
“You’re his soulmate.”
“I’ll ruin his life.”
“And you won’t do that by ignoring him?” Shinya asks, dumbfounded. “Mahiru, I
don’t understand where all of this is coming from.”
She looks up at him, and she seems to be flaring, almost, somehow both
miserable and enraged all at once, and she says, “You’re selfish, too, aren’t
you? You understand, Shinya, what I—”
She stops.
Shinya stares at her.
A shudder seems to pass through her body, and then she stops, inhaling sharply.
“We have to leave him alone,” she says. “This mess—what we’re dealing with,
this—this Hiragi thing—has nothing to do with him, and—”
“Bullshit,” Shinya says. “What, do you think I’m stupid? Of course I wouldn’t
believe a word of what you’re saying right now. Mahiru, you told me—”
“Forget what I told you,” she says, pained. “Heed my words, now, while I’m
still…”
Her shoulders are hunched, and she breathes rather heavily, as if she is trying
very hard not to cry.
“What’s wrong, Mahiru?” he presses. “You’re not acting yourself.”
But she hasn’t acted herself in years, really.
“You keep contradicting yourself,” he continues. “Do you even know what you
want?”
“No,” she says quietly.
Startled by the admission, Shinya blinks.
Mahiru isn’t an easy person to understand, he thinks. He has never quite
grasped who she is, in all the time they’ve known each other and relied on each
other. She’s sweet, but she’s cold; she’s alive, and yet so very dead; she’s
tragic and beautiful all at once. Her blood is not the red of mortals, nor is
it the gold of divinity, or the white of purity.
It is not black, either, but…
But there is something dangerous about her, without a doubt.
Hiragi Mahiru is her own worst nightmare, perhaps.
Her existence in and of itself is somehow paradoxical.
Hiragi Mahiru, an angel.
A devil.
Midday.
Ever-dying.
“I want Guren to be safe,” she says. “But—I want Guren to be here, by my side,
like he’s supposed to be. It’s what fate has dictated, b-but…”
Shinya pushes the cake towards her, and she looks up at him in surprise.
“Apparently, it’s unhealthy to eat your emotions,” he muses. “But who cares?
Just eat, Mahiru. You don’t need to say anything else.”
“Why?”
Her voice is shaky.
Like a little girl, lost.
Is Mahiru lost?
Maybe, Shinya decides. Lost between logic and emotion, between life and death.
Mahiru is obsessed with death, he often thinks. She talks about it so often he
sometimes fears that the reality is quite strong, that the future won’t hold
much more for either of them.
Her hands are always cold, he knows. She doesn’t sleep well, and she often
doesn’t eat well, either.
Sometimes, her heart is cold, too.
But she doesn’t sleep well, and she often doesn’t eat well, either.
She’s not okay, really. He supposes that neither of them are.
But it’s not his job to ensure his own happiness. It’s his job to ensure
Mahiru’s.
Perhaps Mahiru believes that her happiness is intrinsically linked to Guren’s.
It would make sense; as his soulmate, she has a duty to be in his life and to
make it worth living. But if she doesn’t feel like she can do that, then…
“Because I understand,” he finally says.
In a sense, Mahiru may not see any worth in living, anymore.
Their circumstances aren’t as bad as she seems to think, sometimes, though. She
often says and does things that Shinya can’t really understand, above even her
odd fixation on their inevitable deaths. Sometimes, when she says these things,
she doesn’t exactly remember them later, but Shinya would rather let her forget
than hear her say it again, or know that that’s really how she feels.
After all, she’s his best friend.
His only friend, really.
His betrothed.
His soulmate.
He watches as she eats the cake.
They do not speak again, but the message is very clear:
Stay away from Ichinose Guren.
                                      ***
Shinya comes to understand that, whatever Mahiru wishes for him, he can’t give
to her anymore.
Once, when they were kids, he was ready to promise her the world.
“We’ll leave here one day,” he told her, and she laughed, shaking her head.
“It’s not that simple,” she said. “If it was, don’t you think we would already
be gone?”
But they were only thirteen.
What could they have possibly done?
She always said she would wait for Guren, though.
“He can save me from this,” she would insist. “I know he’s strong. He has to
be.”
But the older Shinya got, the more hopeless he realized she was. Perhaps she
was always a little hopeless, at least, but as they grew out of their
childhoods—if one could even call something quite so treacherous a childhood at
all—he found it harder and harder to see a light in her eyes.
Her beautiful hazel eyes.
They’re always so guarded. They always have been.
He loves them, regardless.
If there was one thing he was ever good at doing, it was making Mahiru smile
even when life desperately wanted her to do anything but. But he has always
existed to tempt fate, maybe, living a half-version of life compared to
everyone else in the world. Perhaps he was meant to die long ago, in a
bloodbath of children overseen by the demons of the Hiragi household; perhaps
he was meant to die long ago, at Mahiru’s own hand.
Being alive is his gamble in life.
And he has vowed, for years, to use his life to win Mahiru over, to protect her
better than Ichinose Guren, to love her and earn her love in return.
He doesn’t know if that will ever happen.
But he doesn’t care, anymore, what it might take to save her.
If it’s for Mahiru…
Then, there’s really no reason to hesitate.
Which is why, despite Mahiru’s pleas, Shinya approaches Ichinose Guren again.
And when Guren turns to him in irritation, he simply says, “The white lily is a
symbol of death.”
Guren stares at him for a moment.
There is a class in session around them, but nobody will call Shinya out for
interrupting it.
“I don’t care,” Guren says finally, looking away from him.
Shinya sighs, but doesn’t press the issue further.
Truthfully, he isn’t sure if this is the right thing to do. He knows that
Mahiru doesn’t want this, but he also knows that Mahiru does want this. She
will hurt Guren, she thinks, but she loves him, and wishes she could be near
him.
That is only a piece of Mahiru’s tragedy, really.
Mahiru isn’t tragic, technically. Shinya refuses to see her so, when she holds
so much power between the tips of her fingers and when she has so much control
over him. There is no part of him that wishes to ever see her as anything other
than Mahiru, but Mahiru slips further and further away every single day.
The next week or so, nothing really changes.
Shinya approaches Guren.
Guren pushes him away.
Eventually, Mahiru catches on again.
“I’m disappointed in you,” she tells him.
She lies on her bed, staring up at the ceiling, while Shinya sits on the floor
and simply watches her.
“Why?”
“You never listen to me.”
“Why should I?”
She laughs, sitting up. Her eyes narrow at him.
“Why shouldn’t you?” she asks. “You’re supposed to be my—”
“I’m nothing to you but a pawn,” he says mildly. “And I’m not interested in
that.”
“Aren’t you?”
“I won’t let you use me, Mahiru.”
But it is a lie, and they both know it.
“Leave Guren alone,” she implores him.
Shinya looks around the room, then stops, eye caught on her violin, tucked away
in the corner beside her bed.
“How long has it been since you played?” he asks, looking up to meet her eyes.
“Too long,” she murmurs.
“Play for me now?” he requests.
She looks at him.
Her eyes are quite sad.
“I don’t know if I can.”
“What?”
She lifts a hand in front of her face, then frowns.
“I…”
She lowers her hand again, meeting his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I can. I’m sorry.”
He cannot say why she is apologizing.
He isn’t sure if she even knows, herself.
But she stands and retrieves her violin. He watches her as she gingerly takes
it from the case, then as she begins to tune it.
Shinya doesn’t speak as she plays. He doesn’t know the song, but recognizes it
as something familiar—it is Beethoven, he thinks, but he can’t be certain. It
is flat, largely unmusical. Some of the chords stick out as somewhat raunchy,
as almost broken.
Her fingers shake as they grip the bow.
She never finishes the song.
Halfway through, her bow falls out of her hand, and she lowers the violin,
almost mechanically.
I can’t.
He takes the instrument from her, then sits beside her on her bed.
She doesn’t speak.
She doesn’t even cry.
Instead, they sit in heavy silence, something very vile in the air around them.
Finally, Mahiru turns to him and says, “I’m sorry.”
He pats her head, and she looks at him in surprise.
“It’s okay,” he says.
But it’s not, really.
Shinya understands, in this moment, what Mahiru has lost since he has met her;
it is not that she is losing her life.
Rather, she has already lost it.
He does not know how to give it back to her.
                                      ***
Shinya comes to understand Guren as having a rather simple schedule.
First, he comes to school.
Second, he stays out of people’s hair, and if anybody approaches him, he is
quick to be the first to step back.
Third, he sticks close to his retainers.
Hanayori Sayuri and Yukimi Shigure are in their year, but not their class. At
first, Shinya wasn’t paying quite enough attention to Guren to notice exactly
how close they seem to be, but he’s paying attention now, and he knows that, if
there’s anybody out there that can bring him closer to Guren, it’s those two
girls.
And so, at the end of the week, he approaches Sayuri.
She is waiting for Guren, who will certainly be by shortly, but while he’s not…
As he approaches her, she turns away slightly, but he grabs her wrist, keeping
her from walking away.
“I’m not trying to hurt you,” he tells her. “I just want to talk.
“I—I have nothing to say to you,” she says, and her voice is rather high.
“You have plans, don’t you?” he presses. “What are you doing here? What is
Guren doing here?”
Sayuri tries to pull away from him, but he holds her more tightly.
“Y-you—”
“I don’t care to stop you. I just need to know. I need—”
“Guren-sama!” she cries suddenly, and Shinya drops her hand, cursing.
She moves past him, coming to stand beside Guren, who places a hand on her
shoulder and looks to Shinya with exasperation.
“If you care so much,” Guren says, “I can’t stop you. But I have no reason to
share anything with you, aside from that fact of your status, and you seem to
have established already that doesn’t matter to you. Leave Sayuri out of it.
She’s done nothing, and she doesn’t know anything, either.”
“Are you walking home?” Shinya asks.
Guren frowns at him.
“It doesn’t matter. Just come with me, at least. If you won’t tell me anything,
then maybe I can tell you something.”
As students leave the school, Shinya notes, they turn to look at Guren, Sayuri,
Shigure, and Shinya. Shinya ignores them to the best of his ability, even
knowing that the more time he spends pursuing Guren, the more likely it is that
word will reach Mahiru again.
Still, it is more important that Shinya speaks to Guren.
Before it’s too late for Mahiru.
“Please,” Shinya adds. “If not for me, then for Mahiru.”
Guren scowls at him.
Shinya holds his breath.
Finally, Guren sighs and says, “Fine. Follow me, if you really want.”
He turns on his heel and walks away, Shigure and Sayuri trailing after him.
Shinya watches them for a moment, then glances around at the students who’ve
witnessed their conversation. A few of them meet his eyes, then hastily look
away and begin walking again.
He follows Guren, jogging to catch up, and Guren leads him into a park a few
blocks away from the school. None of them speak, but the mood is decidedly
tense. Finally, Guren says, not turning around, “I don’t want anything to do
with any of this, you know.”
Shinya stops.
Guren faces him.
“Whatever these marks dictate, it doesn’t matter,” he continues. “Mahiru can
have me in our next lifetime. It doesn’t matter either way.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The soulmate magic is clearly fallible,” Guren tells him. “Maybe you wouldn’t
understand.”
“I do, but—”
Shinya stops himself.
“I haven’t talked to Mahiru at all,” Guren continues. “There’s a reason for
that.”
“And what reason would that be?”
Guren laughs. “Can you tell? I’m just Ichinose scum.”
“Bullshit.”
“That’s life, really. Are you satisfied yet?”
“Mahiru loves you.”
“Well, sure. I’m her soulmate.”
“It’s more than that.”
Guren’s gaze is rather cold, Shinya notes.
“Whatever you think, or whatever Mahiru has said to you, is irrelevant. And I
can’t stand around here and talk to you all day.”
It’s probable that somebody is listening in to their conversation, after all.
“Wait.”
Guren raises an eyebrow at him.
“If nothing else, believe me when I say you can’t trust Mahiru.”
Guren watches him for a moment, then laughs lowly.
“I know,” he says.
Shinya furrows his eyebrows.
“I don’t trust anybody,” Guren tells him. “It doesn’t matter what Mahiru is to
me.” He stops, glancing up. The sky is quite blue above them, but Shinya’s skin
feels very cold, anyway.
“You’ll leave me alone, now, right?”
Shinya swallows thickly, and nods.
“Tell Mahiru whatever you want,” Guren says. “It doesn’t matter to me.”
And he turns away, Sayuri and Shigure following behind him. Sayuri glances back
at Shinya briefly, eyebrows knit together, but looks away again just as
quickly, jogging to come up to Guren’s side.
Shinya watches him go, something very much like failure clawing at his heart.
How in the world is he supposed to help Mahiru now?
***** Chapter 3 *****
Chapter Notes
     i lied ashdjfk no playlist yet im sorry :( next update for sure!! i'm
     just having trouble finding the Perfect songs + i havent had time to
     make the playlist cover and stuff bc of school orz. anyway ! here's
     the chap where stuff is already rly starting to Happen. i hope it
     isn't too confusing or anything! that's not the intent, but if it
     does read somewhat as such, know that things will certainly unfold
     more into something that makes sense! on that note, i hope you all
     enjoy!! <3
“Can I tell you a secret?”
Mahiru’s voice was very quiet. So quiet, in fact, that Shinya was momentarily
convinced he had imagined it.
But when she turned to look at him, there was no doubt that he hadn’t.
Something very painful lingered in her irises.
Carefully, he asked, “Why?”
She leaned forward, and brushed a tender hand against his cheek. His breath
caught at her touch.
It is cold, like that of a corpse.
“Because,” she said, “I know you’ll keep it.”
                                      ***
When they were fourteen, Mahiru told Shinya that hatred coursed through her
body so thickly, it was almost impossible to even breathe, sometimes.
He told her that was understandable, considering their circumstances.
She shook her head and said, “I hope that the world crumbles away entirely,”
quietly, as if it was something she should not have been saying.
But how could he have possibly blamed her for that? He hates the world too, and
he always has.
Mahiru isn’t a hateful person, by nature, though. She sees life in things,
often where life is not.
She is kind.
Smart.
Lovable.
But she told Shinya, once, “I would rather walk through Hell a thousand times
than continue living in this corrupt world.”
Have they not been in some kind of Hell, though, all this time?
She often said cryptic things, though. Shinya supposed it was her way of
dealing with things, in a sense. Really, it’s impossible to think that Mahiru
could throw the entire world to Hell just because of her hatred.
And yet, that’s exactly what he thinks.
Mahiru is more powerful than anybody else Shinya has ever known. The strength
which she holds within a single finger in insurmountable compared even to the
entire Order of Imperial Demons, he thinks.
The Hiragis wanted to create a monster, maybe. A genetically superior human,
far beyond anything else.
Mahiru fits the criteria perfectly, really.
Powerful.
Intelligent.
Beautiful.
The perfect human being.
If not for the black blood, spoiled by the rot of her own hatred, which courses
through het veins like a disease.
Shinya noticed a long time ago that she went through times where she was not
herself. But, in a way, she very much is.
In a sense, Mahiru is the coldest person Shinya has ever met.
She speaks in harsh melodies, a goddamn poet writing her lyrics in blood rather
than ink, but she loves with a ferocity to her unlike any other.
“I like winter,” she told him, once.
“Why?” he asked.
“It’s sad, isn’t it? But beautiful, still. And…Shinoa was born in winter. I
think that’s supposed to mean something important.”
“What?”
She smiled. It was somehow menacing.
“Everything means something,” she said. “Why else would fate direct us like its
little puppets? One day,” she continued, “I hope that people stronger than us
can oppress fate. Shinya.”
He met her eyes, then. Where they had only just been very cold, they now shone
sadly.
“Shinya, I hope that you can oppress your fate, some day.”
“If you can’t, then there’s no way I can.”
She laughed and flicked his forehead. He blinked, surprised.
“You’re stronger than you think,” she told him. “Just keep pushing yourself,
all right? To live and to die is human. I intend—”
                                    “Live,
                                   prosper,
                                     die.”
“—to do so with purpose.”
                                      ***
“Can I tell you a secret?”
Shinya smiled at her.
“You can tell me anything,” he promised.
She smiled back, eyes warmer than he had seen them in a long time. She said,
                                                                  “I hate you.”
“This world is rotten, Sometimes, I wish it would all disappear.”
His smile fell away. She lifted her gaze, looking rather sad.
“Sometimes—”
                                           “I wish we would disappear with it.”
“—I wonder how close we came to a real existence,” she finished. “What we
could’ve been. Maybe there’s a constellation for us out there, somewhere.”
“A constellation?”
“All tragedies become stories,” she reminded him.
“Are we tragic?”
She laughed.
He did not need an answer, really, after all.
They were fifteen.
At the end of the year, they would be sixteen.
So, why did everything she said feel quite so final?
                                      ***
Mahiru doesn’t speak to Shinya again after he talks to Guren, except for one
passing message:
“Will you chase me, Shinya?” she asked.
He watched her carefully, considering.
Her lips turned down slightly, almost into a pout, but she said nothing.
Finally, he replied, almost meekly, “To the ends of the Earth.”
Something flashed in her eyes, and then she nodded and walked away from him. He
watched her go, her hair swishing elegantly behind her as she went.
That was two days ago.
Since then, Shinya’s sleep has been riddled with nightmares, painful mixtures
of alternate life and reality, leaving his pulse pounding and his wrist
searing.
Mahiru knows something that he doesn’t.
But two days after their exchange, she disappears.
There is no trace of her anywhere. Her room is as it always was, he notes, as
he takes a look around after coming home from a Mahiru-less school day. The
violin is tucked into the corner again. Her bed is made.
It doesn’t look much like someone has been living her, though.
Maybe Mahiru’s life has been quite lifeless for a long time, now.
Shinya doesn’t know what to feel, exactly. There’s an odd part of him that says
he should be relieved that she is gone. After all, what has she done but hurt
him with her existence? And, yet, he knows that this cannot be the case; she’s
still alive, and as long as they both shall live…
At her core, Mahiru is sweet. She’s loving. She’s a young, beautiful girl that
finds life between the musical notes she sings through her violin. She loves
her younger sister, and, though she doesn’t often act it, Shinya knows her
brothers exist somewhere deep in her heart, too. Maybe even their father would,
if he had made any active effort to involve himself in Mahiru’s life.
Mahiru is sympathetic.
Mahiru is loyal.
Mahiru is compassionate.
Shinya didn’t come to love her because some silly mark dictated that he must.
He didn’t come to love her because the Hiragis forced him to fight for that
honour. He learned about her, and learned that she always drinks her tea a
little sweeter than others, but never her coffee, that she can recite her times
tables forwards and backwards, but stumbles through the English alphabet, that
she always wears her hair down not because people tell her they prefer that way
(they often do), but because she is completely lost when it comes to hair and
beauty techniques.
Mahiru’s disappearance isn’t something he expected, exactly, but he can’t say
that he is too surprised. She’s been gathering outward connections for years.
Anybody opposing the Hiragi family either wants her dead or on their side.
She’s been acting distant for just as long, really. Shinya thinks that she sort
of goes through phases—one day, she will be the hopeful, charming Mahiru that
he has known since they were ten, and the next she will be cold and irritable.
But Shinya has always simply chalked this up to her years of abuse at the hands
of the Hiragi family. She wears a big name, but she does not want to wear it
all, and, for that, she has always paid the price.
Still, though, Shinya cannot help but be wary of her. He hasn’t trusted her for
quite some time, now, but, still, it is impossible not to.
To live.
To prosper.
To die.
There are things Mahiru has said to him over that years that simply stick, he
supposes. She told him, once, that she wants him to escape the Hiragis, above
all else.
He asked, “Why?”
“Because,” she said, “these circumstances were thrust upon you in the most
hideous way possible. Shinya, I hope that you can live, one day. Live, and
prosper, and, eventually, die content.”
But he knows that he could never die content when she has always been quite so
unhappy. What is he to do, then, if he cannot bring a smile to her miserable
face anymore?
She is his soulmate, yes.
But, before that, she is his best friend.
When everything else in his life fell away, it was Mahiru that stood in its
ashes. Mahiru who loved him despite it all, who gave him something to live for,
who took his broken wings and made something out of them.
Fly, she told him. Fly, fly, fly!
He could never fly without her.
There is little he can do on his own, he figures.
In a sense, however, it is his duty to save Mahiru. To love her regardless of
her flaws, regardless of her own fraying humanity.
He leaves her room.
As it closes behind him, the door hardly makes any noise at all.
                                      ***
“Can I tell you a secret?”
                                                                    “Anything.”
“We are made
                                   “To die.”
                                                                            “…”
“But I’m selfish.”
                                                             “That’s not true.”
“I want to live.
“Alongside Guren.
“We’re made for each other, you see?
“One day, we’ll meet again.
 
“Through Heaven or through Hell, I see no difference. We’ll meet through the
flames, and embrace one another in death, as we were always destined to do.
Don’t you see?
Your wings
                                 Are broken.”
                                      ***
Kureto asks Shinya a favour.
In truth, Shinya does not believe that Kureto really cares about whether Mahiru
lives or dies. Rather, he cares about power—attaining it, maintaining it, and
keeping Mahiru away from it. But if Mahiru is gone, doing things by her own
rules, he has no sway in how things will happen.
Kureto knows how to use people. It’s something he’s learned well, as a Hiragi.
But Kureto could never manipulate Shinya the way Mahiru can.
Three days after she disappears, Kureto asks Shinya a favour.
“You have a responsibility to bring her back,” he says. “So, why aren’t you
chasing her?”
Will you chase me, Shinya?
Shinya shakes his head. “I’m not the one she wants to be chasing her.”
Kureto is silent for a moment, clearly contemplating.
Shinya holds his breath.
Finally, Kureto says, “That’s right. She doesn’t really love you, does she?”
Shinya laughs. It rattles through his ribs hollowly.
“That’s right,” he agrees. “Even if I did find her, it’s not as if I have the
power to save her.”
“Who said anything about saving her?”
Shinya’s blood feels quite cold.
“She can ruin herself if that’s what she so chooses,” Kureto continues. “But I
refuse to accept her ruining everything else. This world isn’t hers to destroy.
If she found the power to do something so severe, I’ve no doubts that she
would.”
“What do you mean?”
“You can’t honestly say that you don’t understand what I’m saying, can you?”
Kureto shakes his head. “This is pointless. You’ll heed my words, regardless.”
There is really no argument about it, of course; Kureto pulls the strings here,
and has for quite some time. Once Tenri is out of the way once and for all,
Kureto will take up the reigns.
So long as Mahiru isn’t in his way, at least.
But Mahiru never wanted to be heir. She’s told Shinya countless time—the
institution is fundamentally broken, and the branch system exists only to give
the Hiragis a sickening power that has corrupt them beyond repair.
“I’m sure the corruption is inevitable,” she said, “but if I’m going to lose my
humanity, I’d rather do it on my own terms.”
To live, and to prosper, and to die, eventually.
Kureto doesn’t speak of it any further, but, the next day, it is Sangu Aoi that
approaches Shinya, a tentative tap against his shoulder and then a deep, hasty
bow as he turns to face her.
“Kureto-sama respectfully requests your presence,” she says meekly.
“On what terms?”
She shifts nervously. “The issue is confidential, my lord.”
So, she doesn’t actually know, he surmises.
“Just me?”
“N-no, three others.”
“Three?”
“Kureto-sama hasn’t informed me of all the details,” she says quickly. “B-but
if—”
He offers her a smile.
She stops talking, that nervous look in her eyes now covering her face
completely.
“That’s more than okay,” he assures her. “Lead the way, please.”
She nods quickly, then turns on her heel and does as he has asked.
First Shibuya High School is quite irregular in many ways, but the largest may
be the large displacement in authority. Kureto, student council president,
practically runs the whole show himself. Whatever he wishes, he can make happen
in a heartbeat, if only because he holds the name Hiragi like a trump card
between his smug hands. Still, though, Seishiro doesn’t hold such sway, the
“inferior” son, and Shinya could never hope to be anything more than a tool for
them. Kureto and Mahiru, however…
Shinya knows he is powerful, but there is no power greater than that of the
Hiragis. He is hopelessly at their mercy, ever their pawn but never their
brother.
Aoi leads him through the halls and to the student council room, where she
steps aside to let him through the door before her. Already in the room are
three others, as Aoi said.
Shinya recognizes each of them as classmates.
The first is red-haired, rather short, and she stands with a fire unrivalled
even to the shade of her hair. She holds her chin up high, proud of her being
and her name. Shinya knows her to be Jujo Mito, esteemed daughter of the Jujo
clan.
The second seems to make himself a little scarcer in the room than Mito does.
He looks suspicious of the situation, as Shinya suspects he should be. This is
Goshi Norito, the youngest of two brothers from the Goshi clan.
The third is a little more familiar to Shinya, dark-haired and flat-faced,
holding himself cautiously, as if his fight-or-flight response is kicking in.
Shinya supposes that this could be true; after all, just being her is unsafe in
and of itself for someone like Ichinose Guren, a member of a “lowly” branch
family and the soulmate of the missing Mahiru.
Kureto stands before them, watching them critically.
He says, “Mahiru is missing.”
As Mito gasps, Shinya notices that Guren’s posture changes. Just slightly,
barely enough to actually be noticeable, but Kureto’s announcement has surely
stirred something within him.
“It is my belief,” Kureto continues, “that you four are the best people to
bring her back.”
“That’s an interesting belief,” Shinya says. “You must have your reasons?”
“Who better to bring her back than her soulmates?” Kureto asks.
It would be impossible to miss the way that Guren stiffens at these words.
Shinya only laughs, though. “Fuck off,” he says. “You know as well as I do that
I’m not Mahiru’s soulmate.”
Kureto looks unimpressed. “Does it matter? She still loves you, doesn’t she?”
“What would you know about love?”
“You ought to put your faith in the right place,” Kureto tells him coldly.
“Trust me now when I tell you that you’ll be better off doing my bidding than
anybody else’s.”
Shinya doesn’t respond, instead choosing to turn his gaze on Mito and Goshi.
Kureto follows Shinya’s look slowly.
“I figured you’re untrustworthy, however,” he explains, turning to Shinya once
again.
“Really.”
“Not only you. Ichinose, too.”
“Is there a reason why you think you’ve made us your enemies?”
Kureto laughs, but Shinya cannot say there is really any mirth in the noise at
all.
“Not at all,” Kureto says. “Just that you both having my sister’s brandings on
your wrists.”
“We’re not her property,” Guren speaks up, finally.
“No? You don’t think she could manipulate you at all? Couldn’t twist your
emotions? Take your love for her and make it destroy you?”
Guren is silent.
“That’s what I thought.” Kureto casts his gaze other the four of them again.
“You can do this, right? I should hope that you would, or that you would die
trying, at the very least.”
“Yes, Kureto-sama!” Mito says eagerly.
Goshi merely nods his agreement, but Shinya doesn’t miss the small smile that
tugs at his lips, determination in the face of hardship. It is almost
admirable, really, but…
“You’re not telling us the whole truth.”
“About what?” Kureto asks. He sounds rather bored.
“You know more about Mahiru’s disappearance than you’re saying,” Shinya
insists. “It wouldn’t bother you so much if you didn’t. You—”
“Enough.”
Shinya stops, but the furious pounding of his pulse until seems to worsen.
“It’s not your place to say such things to me,” Kureto says. “Take your orders
as they are. You value your life, don’t you?”
Does he?
Now, he is not so sure.
His life is Mahiru.
His sun.
His midday.
Your wings.
They’re broken.
Her touch was gentle.
She didn’t want to hurt him, exactly. Maybe she never wanted to fix him,
either, but…
“Damn you,” Shinya spits. “You think this is some kind of game? Mahiru’s a real
person, and she—”
“Your feelings are only going to hurt you,” Kureto tells him. “Mahiru was never
going to amount to anything more than this. What, did you think you could make
her happy? She never even wanted you in her life.”
It isn’t like a slap in the face, really. Shinya’s known this for years.
Still…
“Mahiru—”
“She doesn’t care about you. She doesn’t care about anybody but herself.
Clearly, or we wouldn’t be in this situation. Who would you rather trust,
Shinya? Me, who can give you greatness, or the person that’s been manipulating
you for the past six years?”
Shinya looks away from him, trying not to scowl.
“That’s right. Now, go ahead, then. You have from now. Bring her back alive, if
you can. She is still my sister, after all.”
He turns away from them, and Shinya looks at his back for a moment, something
dreadful clawing at his chest, something so ridiculously vile that it almost
feels entirely separate from Shinya.
But there is just one moment, a heightened sense of suspense hanging in the
air, and then Guren turns on his heel, exiting the room, and the atmosphere
falls away all at once, like a frayed cord finally snapping at its final
stretch.
Goshi and Mito follow Guren out, and Shinya almost feels bad for them. Kureto
has dragged them into quite the mess—Guren, Shinya, and Mahiru’s messy tangles
of red thread, fate and destiny which makes the very earth quake, the way
Heaven and Hell intertwine. Still, though, devoted to the Hiragis as they are,
they won’t refuse Kureto at all. And, really, he and Guren are in much the same
situation, but…
Perhaps Kureto was correct when he called their soulmate markings brands.
Your wings.
Shinya.
Are broken.
Will you chase me?
…
“Can I tell you a secret?” she asked.
“You can tell me anything,” he promised.
She said, “I’ve never wanted anything more than to be helpless, sometimes. This
world”—is rotten—“has been so harsh to us, hasn’t it? I wish that someone would
help us.”
“Do you need help?”
She considered it for a moment.
“No,” she decided. “But it would be nice, for a change.”
Years ago, Shinya came to understand something about Mahiru:
She is stronger than he is.
She is stronger than Guren is.
She is stronger than Kureto is.
But she can’t oppose fate.
If there is a God, He despises people like Mahiru. He sees the Heaven inside of
her and damns her to Hell instead, as if angels deserve to be fallen. Mahiru
will never have a saviour, the way she always said she wanted one. Instead, she
will fight fate, and fate in turn will destroy her.
Live.
Prosper.
Die.
Shinya’s veins sting with ice. Destiny brushes against him, desire on her other
side. There is no one path he may follow, anymore.
“Guren.”
Outside of the student council room, Sayuri and Shigure have stood in wait.
Both of them look rather nervous, but it washes away as soon as the see Guren,
eyes flooding with relief.
“I guess I can’t avoid you anymore, huh?” Guren doesn’t even turn to look at
him. “Whatever, I guess. I had my doubts that you would’ve left me alone,
anyway.”
“I—”
“You told Kureto, didn’t you?”
Shinya falters.
“What?”
“About me. About Mahiru. About the whole—soulmate thing.”
Shinya comes to stand beside him, frowning.
Guren meets his eyes finally.
“I don’t care,” he says. “It’s rather inconvenient, however.”
Shinya shakes his head. “I didn’t tell him anything. Maybe Mahiru did. Who
knows? Does it matter? Don’t you care about Mahiru at all?”
“That’s not the point.”
“What do you mean?”
Guren sighs, looking away from him and turning to Sayuri and Shigure. “We’re
going home,” he says. “What a hassle…”
“Guren-sama?”
“Make sure you’re sticking close to me, all right? I have a bad feeling about
all of this.” Guren glances at Shinya again. “Are you coming?”
Shinya blinks, then nods slowly. He looks back to Mito and Goshi, but Guren has
already turned away and is pulling his retainers down the hall, towards the
exit of the school.
“Come with us,” he suggests. “Kureto asked you for a reason. I’m sure it
wouldn’t end well for any of us if we left you behind.”
“Sh-Shinya-sama,” Mito squeaks out, “what is...?”
“It’s best not to ask questions,” he advises her. “There will be time to
explain later, but there are things I don’t know yet, either. Kureto seemed
pretty certain that we should just shut up and trust him.”
“What happened to Mahiru-sama?”
He almost laughs. She seems almost incapable of not asking questions, really.
He says, “I don’t know. Come on, then. We’ll lose him if we stay here any
longer.”
He turns away from Mito and Goshi before either of them can speak again,
following Guren’s trail quickly.
Will you chase me, Shinya?
To the ends of the Earth.
She did not smile.
Shinya rubs at his wrist absently as he falls into step behind Guren. It hurts,
a bit, like after you remove the bandage from a wound that hasn’t fully healed.
Your wings.
Shinya.
Fly.
Fly.
Fly.
Fly.
…Chase me…?
He wonders how long she has known that things would turn out like this. Weeks?
Months? Years, perhaps. Mahiru has always been something of a mystery, even in
the times when he was so certain that he knew her.
Hiragi Mahiru is not a goddess.
She is not an angel.
She is not a devil.
She is, simply, Hiragi Mahiru.
A fifteen-year-old girl.
A child.
Where is the humanity? she asked.
Where is the humanity? she cried.
Where is the humanity? she begged.
Hiragi Mahiru is not dead, but she has not been alive for a very, very long
time.
Shinya.
Will you chase me, Shinya?
But if there is one thing he knows, it is this:
He could never fly without her.
***** Chapter 4 *****
Chapter Notes
     so so sorry for the delay!! lots was going on, and school's been
     difficult :( however, like promised, i've completed that playlist! if
     you want a tracklist, you can find that here :^) i hope this chapter
     is ok!! and i promise the next will come this thursday ! sorry this
     is so short :( the next chapter will be longer! thanks for reading <3
“Lead them outside,” Guren says. “We’ll only be a few minutes.”
Sayuri and Shigure exchange a nervous glance with each other, but heed his
words, directing Mito and Goshi into the hall outside of Guren’s apartment.
Shinya watches him, thoughtful, as he walks towards the kitchen. He does not
look back until he stands near the kitchen table, and then he says, “Well? I’m
not going to wait all day.”
Shinya looks at him a moment, then slips his shoes off and makes to join Guren.
Guren directs him to sit down, and then takes the seat on the other side of the
table.
They watch each other for a very long moment, and then Shinya says, “You can’t
even offer me a cup of tea?”
Guren laughs. “Yeah, right. I completely meant it when I said this would be
very quick. I’m not interested in being your friend.”
“Wonderful,” Shinya says dryly. “I think you have an abhorrent personality. I
wouldn’t want to be your friend, anyway.”
“Yeah, well, you don’t seem that great yourself.” Guren sighs, then works to
pull his sleeve up, eyebrows knitting slightly.
Shinya watches him, fascinated, and then is drawn down to his wrist as Guren
places it out between them.
“The white lily,” Shinya says quietly. “It’s very beautiful. Befitting of
Mahiru entirely, if you ask me.”
Guren shakes his head, though.
“She thought it was beautiful, too,” he says. “But I’m not so sure. Look more
closely. The blood doesn’t seem overly promising, to me.”
Blood.
Yes, Shinya’s mark reeks of blood, too.
“But Kureto said her soulmates. Not soulmates. Multiple.” Guren pulls his arm
back, leaning slightly in his chair. “He was talking about you, right? What did
he mean?”
Shinya’s lips twitch slightly, but there is no humour behind the action
whatsoever. He pulls his own sleeve up, baring the mark to Guren.
“The white dove is a symbol of peace,” Shinya explains quietly, “and of love.
But no creature with broken wings can ever fly.” He looks up at Guren, and
tries for a grin. “Mahiru never broke my wings, but she certainly didn’t fix
them, either. Instead, she gave me a reason to believe she could fix them. But
why would she ever make a promise to someone she’s not supposed to love? I told
her I would win her over, but fate never told her to love me. Fate told her to
love you, while I watched on in silence.”
Guren looks down at Shinya’s mark, an incomprehensible look crossing his face.
“That makes no sense,” he mutters. “I’ve never even heard of something like
that before.”
“Well, now you have.” Shinya smiles wryly. “It’s not that important, though. I
wouldn’t worry too much about those details.”
Guren looks up at him frowning.
“You noticed, right? All three of us have quite gruesome marks. Mahiru’s is
cracked. Yours is blood-stained. Mine is broken. Seems like a bit of a mess,
doesn’t it?”
But Shinya can’t say that he has ever seen anybody else’s mark, really. He saw
his parents’, but he doesn’t even remember them, now. The short-lived friends
he had during his time competing for Mahiru’s hand as a child had all had
similarly gruesome marks. He can only assume that they were all for Mahiru.
After all, they lived and they died for her, didn’t they?
They did not prosper, however.
“That’s true,” Guren says. “But…well, they’re all white. I know the white lily
represents death, but yours is white, and Mahiru’s is white… White represents
innocence, right? And purity? That has to mean something.”
Shinya stares at him.
And then a laugh rises in his throat, painful as it falls from his lips.
“Innocence?” he asks, incredulous. “I doubt that’s the case. Mahiru seems a
little too far gone, in my opinion, for us to have retained any kind of
innocence, and I can’t say there is any purity in any of this, either. That’s
just wishful thing. I know Mahiru better than you, sure, but you can’t be that
blind, can you?”
Guren frowns.
“Mahiru is a terrible person,” Shinya continues. “A good person that become a
terrible person by circumstance, but a terrible person, nonetheless. That’s
what I know to be the truth, because she’s told me, because Kureto’s told me,
because the circumstances are telling me. It’s not what I want to believe, by
any means.”
“Then, why believe it?”
Shinya thinks about it for a moment.
Then, he says, “Because I know it’s true, less from what I have been told, and
more from what I have experienced.”
“The world began with people like us,” she told him, once.
“People like us?”
“Scared,” she said. “Insignificant.”
“You’re far from insignificant.”
She laughed. “Really? I wish that weren’t true. But, you know, it doesn’t
matter much. Something tells me that the world is going to end with people like
us, too.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s all people are,” she says. “Insignificant. Scared. We’re small,
but think we are large. That’s humanity’s downfall. Even when everything seems
like it’s going to end, you shouldn’t buy into the belief that it’s safe to be
anything other than human.”
He didn’t understand what she meant, at the time, and even now…
Guren looks unhappy, Shinya thinks.
“So, what, then?” he asks. “We find her, take her to Kureto, and then…”
“We let that be the end of it,” Shinya says. “Mahiru wanted to keep you far
away from her.”
“But not you.”
“I was only ever someone for her to use,” Shinya tells him. “You know, that’s
why men get married, right? So that their wives can boss them around for the
rest of their lives.”
But Guren is frowning at him.
He laughs. Even to his own ears, it sounds distinctly off.
“It’s not that large,” he reassures. “Mahiru isn’t the be all and end all for
either of us. You were already determined to live without her, right? So, why
should it worry you?”
“She’s still my soulmate.”
“So, why do you keep telling me that doesn’t matter?” Shinya sighs, sitting
back. “We should get this done sooner rather than later. We’ll never be able to
find her if we don’t start looking.”
Guren seems like he wants to say something, but he simply nods, then makes his
way towards the door to bring the other four back. As he walks away, Shinya
can’t help but wonder just what they’ve gotten themselves into.
There are only four seats at the kitchen table, but Sayuri and Shigure don’t
even question it as Guren, Mito, and Goshi sit down. The two girls prep some
tea and bring it over, then stand almost awkwardly off to the side.
Shinya wonders if they do this because they have to, or because they want to.
“Kureto probably thinks we can find her because of the soulmate magic,” Shinya
says. “And that may be true, but unless we can pin her down even a little bit,
that’s hardly going to help us.”
“I assumed he asked because he thought we knew where she would go.”
“I don’t know shit about Mahiru,” Shinya admits. “She’s always been a mystery
to me. I think we should rely on the soulmate thing, if we can. If she’s hiding
in a crowd or something, it could help.”
“How are we going to find her in the city?” Guren asks, dubious. He takes a
short sip of his tea, but doesn’t take his eyes off of Shinya at all.
Shinya frowns. “Well, there are six of us. Two of which have some kind of bond
to Mahiru.”
“A-ah, Shinya-sama,” Mito stammers. “I don’t understand what’s going on here.
Can you explain?”
Goshi has said nothing, but Shinya notes that his brow is furrowed in thought,
too.
“Right,” he says. “Well, there’s not much to say, is there? Mahiru’s missing,
Kureto wants her back, and Guren and I can apparently help.”
“But because she’s your soulmate?” Mito asks, uncertain.
“She’s my soulmate,” Guren tells her. “He’s just some unlucky bastard,
clearly.”
Mito bristles, mouth open wide to defend him, but Shinya just laughs.
“Nice,” he says. “I can’t even say you’re wrong. Well, let’s use what’s left of
the day that we have, right? We can split into two groups. If Mito-san needs
some explanations, we can explain on the way. I have a feeling we’ll be
covering a lot of distance today.”
“Sayuri, Shigure,” Guren speaks. “You’re with me.”
“No can do,” Shinya says. “Remember what Kureto said? He doesn’t trust us.
These two”—he gestures to Mito and Goshi—“are essentially here to spy on us.
They can’t do that if you’re out and about with your cute little retainers.”
Guren scowls.
“You can choose who you take,” Shinya offers. “But if things go wrong like
this, I’m sure Kureto will do whatever he can to blame us for it. And, anyway,
it’s just for now. I have a feeling you can protect yourself, anyway, yeah?”
Guren thinks about it for a moment, then turns to Shigure and says, “You’re
with me. And Mito.”
“Wh-what?!” Sayuri squeaks. “Guren-sama, I—”
“You’ll be fine,” Guren says, tone dismissive. “It should just be for a few
hours. If you come up with nothing, come back here. He never did tell us when
this had to be done by.”
“Preferably before Mahiru does something insane, though, right?”
Guren laughs. “I thought she already did do something insane. After all, she’s
engaged to you, isn’t she?”
“That’s just mean.”
“Must be something about you.” Guren sighs, then stands, gesturing for Shigure
and Mito to follow him. Shigure does so without any hesitation, but Mito
glances at Shinya, looking anxious.
“Trust Kureto,” Shinya tells her. “This is what he wanted from you, I assure
you.”
She exhales, then nods, standing up almost too enthusiastically. “Yes, my
lord!”
Shinya and Goshi stand, too, and follow Guren and the others out of the
apartment. Once they get back outside, Guren tells Shinya that his group will
go west, so Shinya agrees to go east. If they get to nothing in the next seven
hours, they’ll return and figure something else out for the morning.
“Shinya-sama,” Goshi says as they make their way down the street, “what’s the
story between you and Guren, exactly?”
“There isn’t one,” Shinya says. “Fate, maybe, but fate is probably a load of
shit.”
“Guren-sama shouldn’t be involved in any of this,” Sayuri says heatedly from
Shinya’s other side. “This is all a mistake.”
Shinya laughs. “Mistakes don’t happen, Hanayori-san. At least, not with the
Hiragis. And, anyway, I doubt anybody has the strength to keep away from their
soulmate.”
“But isn’t Mahiru-sama your soulmate?” Goshi presses.
“It’s complicated.”
“I have a feeling that we have more than enough time to talk about it, and
probably quite a bit more. Mito-chan and I have a right to know what’s going on
here, since Kureto-sama singled us out like that and all. Who are we supposed
to believe, anyway? Kureto-sama made it sound like you aren’t trustworthy.”
“I’m just adopted, you know,” Shinya reminds him. “And he’s not wrong about me.
I’m closer to Mahiru than to him. If I felt the need to follow in her footsteps
for any reason, I would do it in a heartbeat.”
This seems to surprise Sayuri, who lets out an odd little puff of air.
“Really?” she asks. “That’s not really healthy, is it?”
Shinya almost laughs. “But wouldn’t you do the same for Guren?”
“If Guren-sama made a mistake, I would help him fix it,” Sayuri says firmly.
“But I would never follow him blindly, unless I felt like whatever he wasn’t
telling me, he wasn’t for a reason. And, anyway, it’s my job. It’s not about my
feelings.”
“I see.” Shinya glances up briefly. A few clouds drift overhead, but, overall,
it is a regular spring afternoon. Still, something very heavy presses at his
chest, and when he looks to Sayuri again, she is frowning at him.
“What is Mahiru-sama to you, exactly?” she asks, head tilted slightly.
“A friend,” Shinya says. “Nothing more, really. Let’s go this way. I have a few
ideas of places she could be hanging around…”
                                      ***
“Just trust me!” he insisted. “I promise, it’s a good thing!”
Mahiru laughed. Shinya could listen to that sound forever, he was sure.
It was her thirteenth birthday, and, as he had learned over the past two years,
the Hiragis weren’t really the type to celebrate such things. So, Shinya had
taken the past few weeks to plan a bit of a surprise for her, gathering up the
money to afford a couple slices of cake and a necklace he had caught her eyeing
last month.
“Trusting you doesn’t sound like that great of an idea,” she teased. “How do I
know you’re not going to do something mean?”
“What mean thing could I possibly do to you? And on your birthday, no less.” He
took his hands away from her eyes, then stepped back. “It’s nothing like that,”
he continued. “Just a little celebration.”
It was hardly enough—two slices of strawberry cake on the small table in his
room, a box with a golden bow wrapping it between them—but she took a moment to
look at it, and then turned to him with a teary smile.
“You’re so dumb,” she said, laughing. “Are you trying to gain my favour?”
“Yes, exactly,” he joked. “Show you that I’m the perfect domestic husband for
you. And I can even remember your birthday. And your favourite flavour of
cake.”
She laughed.
It was like an angel’s song.
“Thank you,” she said. “You didn’t have to do this.”
“I wanted to.” He smiled, then directed her to sit down before taking his own
seat on the floor across from her. He reached for the box, passing it to her.
She took it, blinking, and then looked up to him, head tilted slightly. “What’s
this?”
“Your birthday gift, obviously.” He grinned. “Go ahead. Open it. I only spent
my whole life’s savings buying it.”
She snorted, but gently untied the gold ribbon, letting to fall to the floor,
and then gently lifted the lid up.
He could hear her intake of breath all from the other side of the table.
“Shinya, you…”
When she looked up, Shinya alarmedly noted that she looked quite close to
tears.
She laughed again. “You’re too good to me, all things considered. Ah, maybe I
should take it back.” She smiled brightly. “It’s not such a mistake to trust
you, after all. I hope that I’ll be able to trust you forever.”
“You will,” he said. “I promise.”
She took the necklace out, and carefully put it on, taking a long moment to
clasp in the back.
She beamed at him.
“Good,” she said. “And you’d never break a promise, right?”
Never.
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he assured her.
                                      ***
The necklace was gold.
A gold chain, with a golden dove hanging from it.
Mahiru stopped wearing it last year, without any explanation, but Shinya never
asked her. He supposes, now, that it was her way of telling him that their
trust in each other was fading fast.
He can’t blame her, really.
He hasn’t trusted her for quite some time, now.
Maybe it hurt. Maybe it didn’t. He doesn’t really know, anymore. Perhaps his
emotions aren’t really there anymore at all.
The walk the city until their legs shake and their heads hurt, and Shinya
eventually checks the time to see that they have already exceeded their seven
hours.
If nothing else, it was a decent bonding experience, he thinks. Sayuri has gone
from “Hanayori-san” to “Sayuri-san,” and Goshi from “Goshi-san” to simply
“Goshi” just in these hours. They gathered a few hints from the odd passing
person, but nobody could tell them anything more than that they had seen an
ashen-haired girl in a school uniform at some point during the day. It was
nowhere near enough to pinpoint her location.
But Shinya knows that, if Mahiru wants to be found, she will make herself
found.
He just doesn’t know if that’s a good thing, or a bad one.
They meet Guren, Shigure, and Mito outside of the apartment complex, and Shinya
tells Goshi and Mito that they can return home, if they’d like; there’s nothing
more they can do today, after all, and it’s beginning to get quite late.
They hesitate, but eventually relent, bidding the others a good night, after
Shinya promises to be in contact with them tomorrow morning. They can’t do
anything without them, after all, lest Kureto finds out and decides to punish
them somehow.
But as Shinya says that he should get going too, Guren stops him.
“We got here earlier,” he explains. “Come up with me. There’s something you
might want to see.”
Shinya frowns at him, but when he looks between Guren and Shigure, he gets the
feeling that whatever it is is rather serious.
“Okay,” he agrees. “But it’ll be quick, right?”
“As quick as you make it, I’m sure,” Guren says, then leads the way inside.
Shinya doesn’t say another word as they head upstairs, but he feels just about
as confused as Sayuri looks right now.
As they come inside Guren’s apartment, Guren locks the door behind them, then
takes his shoes off and steps inside fully, Sayuri and Shigure right on his
heels. Shinya follows, a little more hesitant, and comes to stand beside Guren
in the kitchen. Guren hands him a piece of paper, silent.
It is folded into quarters, and as Shinya takes care to unfold it, Guren says,
“It was under the door when we returned. I read it—sorry, I just…you know, if
you get mail to your home, it’s usually not for one of your classmates, of all
people.”
“I understand,” Shinya tells him.
He stares at the letter in full, now, heart sinking as he recognizes the
familiar writing.
“It could be a hint, though,” Guren says. “It’s not all bad.”
Shinya hardly hears him.
Dear Shinya,
I told you, didn’t I? Stay away from Guren. I thought I could trust_you. It
would seem I was wrong. But, even still, don’t doubt that I care. Don’t doubt
that I love you. You can regain that trust. I’ll forgive you, I promise. After
all, we’re soulmates, aren’t we?
He feels quite sick.
“It sounds like she wants to make contact with you,” Guren continues. “Soon,
too. That’s good, right? Shinya?”
Shinya’s hands tremble.
He tears the letter in half.
Guren stares at him, shocked.
“I don’t care,” Shinya says harshly. “This isn’t Mahiru. I’m going home. Good
night.”
He leaves the remnants of the letter on Guren’s floor as he turns away and
makes his way to the door. Guren, Sayuri, and Shigure do nothing to stop
him—they do not follow him, do not even say a word—and he leaves the apartment
with a coldness running through his veins and a shooting pain in his chest.
And you’d never break a promise, right?
How is he ever supposed to gain the forgiveness of someone that is so far away
from him?
End Notes
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