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They crawl from the dark together, hand in hand, bloody and bleeding but—the air moves above ground, Mika’d forgotten, and even the snow’s bite can’t numb the fierce burst of emotion in his chest. Yuu, trailblazing before him, trips, falling down a sudden slope.
Mika yelps as he’s pulled with him. They tumble for so long Mika’s head spins and reels when they bottom out, kid limbs tangled, fogged breath rising to gray sky together for the first time in years.
“Mika,” Yuu says, his name catching in his throat. Mika turns to look where Yuu points and gasps. “They lied-“
The mountain falls out before them and into a valley bedded with the bones of some ruined city—not all ruined, he amends when he notices lights flickering in faraway windows. He unclenches his hands from where they’ve grabbed fistfuls of Yuu’s clothes, shaking from the cold, the realization that humankind hasn’t lost.
Then—a crunching of snow behind them, the sweep and snap of clothes in wind. Mika twists in place, edging in front of Yuu—
“Oh,” Yuu says. He leans around Mika to stare at the dark figures that approach them through snow-laden pines.
“Oh,” Mika agrees as Ichinose Guren stops and smiles down at them, hand on sword hilt, eyes very brown and very human.
“Well,” Guren tells them, and the women at his sides smile. “Just as the prophecy foretold.”
Mika and Yuu exchange weary, wary looks, but take the soldiers’ hands when they offer open palms.
…
They’re thirteen and top of their class—Mika’s untouchable in classwork, has even sat in on demon-weapon research, and Yuu-
“He’s good at waving pointy things around,” Mika explains to a new classmate. Yuu growls, shoves him, and Mika laughs as he stumbles back. Kimizuki Shiho’s a beanpole, mostly glasses and perpetual scowl. He and Yuu—don’t get along.
“Ah,” he says, sounding anything but interested, and cleans his glasses. Yuu’ll mimic the gesture later in their room and Mika’ll laugh, push him over.
“You’re Kimizuki, right?” Mika asks, extending his hand. Kimizuki takes it without hesitation; his grip is sure and firm, and Mika can’t help a small smile. “Guren asked us to show you around.”
“Asked you,” Yuu corrects, eyeing the new competition. Mikaela and Kimizuki ignore him.
“I’m Mikaela.” He plops a hand on the top of Yuu’s head, taking advantage of gained height to muss his hair. Yuu slaps at his hand, rolls his eyes as Mika says, “He’s Yuichiro.”
What Kimizuki doesn’t tell them is this:
He’s known their names months already, has heard of the boys who’d crept from the mouth of a vampire stronghold. They’re fast and strong and vengeful, the pride of a program altered just to accommodate their incredible performance and potential.
He walks with them down recovered concrete hallways, listening and watching. Yuichiro spits vampire like sin, feral hatred glittering in his eyes. Mikaela’s less volatile, more caustic—where Yuichiro smolders, he creeps like winter’s first fatal freeze. Cunning intelligence cuts his eyes sharp; there’re few who can withstand his moody glares, fewer who know how to navigate his late-night ice floes.
“-and this is your room,” Mikaela’s saying, gesturing to a scuffed gray door. He points down the hall. “We’re over there. You should come hang out sometime.”
“Thanks.” Kimizuki leans into the door, turns the loose knob. Yuichiro and Mikaela trot off, elbows in each other’s sides, voices young and loud. They seem normal enough like this, racing to class, laughing when Yuichiro trips over his laces.
Later, after he’s changed and reported to training, Kimizuki wonders how he had seen them and thought normal. They twirl in flashes of light, breathlessly violent in every step and turn and he’s afraid, because Ichinose and his company stand in the room’s shadowy corner, eyes gleaming something knowing.
What Kimizuki learns is this:
Mikaela and Yuichiro survived a noble’s intent to kill, lost the half dozen other kids of the Hyakuya Orphanage. Fate’s sowed tragedy in their bones, waters it with the blood and sweat and tears of resistance in a world undone. Seraphim, the rumors say. How human is humanity’s greatest hope?
…
Shinoa and Mika get along like twins separated at birth. Yuu has no chance against their tag-team teasing—they’re ruthless and, through some kind of telepathy Yuu’s sure they possess, know whatever he does, even particular embarrassing things he tries to keep under wraps.
Today, the city’s warm and soft with summer breezes beneath a blue, blue sky. The three of them take advantage of the good weather and sprawl beside their empty lunches on the school roof. Yuu and Shinoa pillow their heads on Mika’s chest and stomach, dozing away their afternoon sleepiness.
“Hey,” Mika tells them, mouth turning. “Your heads are actually pretty heavy.”
“Sorry,” Shinoa says. Yuu snorts. “It’s probably just mine; Yuu’s got nothing in his, so.”
“True.” Mika reaches out to press his hand down on Yuu’s face before he can sit up and hit them. Yuu growls and reverses his momentum, bearing down on Mika’s ribs until he pushes him away.
“So mean, Yuu-chan,” Mika says, rubbing the sore spot. Shinoa snickers.
“I’m not the mean one.” Yuu picks up his lunchbox and searches for on stray pieces of rice he missed his first time over. He pokes Mika’s head with his dirty shoe. “Compared to you two, I’m like, a saint.”
“A saint with five fights on his record just this month,” Mika points out mildly, a small smile twisting his mouth.
“I do good things, too, you know-“
“Like what? Pushing doors that say pull?” Shinoa teases. Mika laughs, delighted.
“Wh-“ Yuu turns red, squeaks, “You saw that?”
“Oh, wow,” Mika says, voice trembling with laughter. “That’s pretty impressive.”
“It took him a while to figure it out, too,” Shinoa continues. She turns deadpan eyes to Yuu, who looks away, pretending not to hear. “But you got it eventually. Yay, Yuu-chan.” She ends her monotone cheer with three brisk claps, head bouncing on Mika’s stomach as he laughs.
…
“It’s just three days, Mika,” Yuu says, voice high with agitation. Mika crosses his arms and sets his jaw. The rest of the room—half-full after training—stills in awkward silence. Shinoa starts toward them from the gear closet, something close to worry twisting her mouth, lowering her eyebrows.
“But we promised,” Mika argues. “No missions without each other.”
“This doesn’t even count! We’re just dropping off supplies! Come yourself if you really don’t trust me-“
“Typical Yuichiro logic,” Mika scoffs. “Skip out on a lab I’ve been planning for months to babysit you-“
“Hey,” Shinoa says, finally stepping between them. “Quit it.”
“Tell him he’s being stupid,” Yuu says, glaring over her shoulder.
Mika’s laugh’s so frigid and bitter Shinoa’s stomach rolls. “Right,” he drawls, sarcasm dripping, cutting, “Because I’m the stupid one.”
Shinoa grabs Yuu by the elbow with one hand, Mika with the other, and hisses, “Calm down. You obviously shouldn’t talk about this now.”
“He won’t ever want to talk about it,” Yuu mutters. He wrenches his arm out of Shinoa’s grip and spins around to leave. At the door, he stills, shoves his hands in his pockets. “I’m going, whatever you say. Bye.”
He disappears around the corner and Mika gently pulls away from Shinoa. When she turns to look, his face is deceptively still, calm, and- “Mikaela,” she says, a hard edge to her voice, “Don’t let him go like this-“
“It’s his choice.” He tugs his sleeves so that they lie straight, unruffled. The last of their classmates walk by, stealing small glances and whispers he doesn’t seem to notice. He pauses, eyebrows lowering just enough to catch Shinoa’s notice, and asks, “Are you—going, too?”
Shinoa sighs and steps back. “No,” she tells him. “It’ll just be him and whomever Guren’s picked.” Then, after a long moment within which Mika’s eyes lose most of their warmth, she says, “He’ll be fine, probably. What trouble could he get into on a supply run?”
Mika nods, but—there’s a silent stillness to his shoulders as he walks away that tells her tonight, Yuu’ll sleep on her bedroom floor, turned away by a locked door.
…
“Mikaela-“ Shinoa finds him outside of his last class. Alarm shoots through him at her quick breath, red cheeks, bright eyes.
“What happened?” he asks, stifling anxiety seizing his lungs. Shinoa drags a heavy breath and scrapes a hand through her hair, gaze fluttering away from his. “Oh,” he says, feeling suddenly very faint. “It’s Yuu-“
“It’s okay,” she tells him, reaching out. She shakes his shoulder, worrying at the glazed look on his face. “He’s—gonna be okay. Just, we need to go now.”
They push their way across the crowded school building and out into the quad—it’s winter, sunny but cold with buffeting winds that grab at them with freezing hands, pulling their hair and clothes. The med-wing’s lobby’s a bustling, worried-voice thing, filled to more than full with anxious faces and pacers and Mika frowns into its fluorescent glare.
Shinoa searches the chaos, pulling her family insignia from her blazer pocket. She steps in front of a tight-faced nurse who answers her questions quickly, tersely, then leaves with a small bow. Mika hovers at Shinoa’s side, looking more than a little lost in the noise.
“Here,” she says, grabbing his hand. He startles but seems to pull back into himself—there’s focus behind the panic in his eyes. “He’s in a room down this hall-“
Time’s lost its footing, slides all around Mika as they leave the noise and enter a hospital ward whose walls hold a terrifying, cottony noiselessness. Shinoa’s hand is warm in his, grounding; he’s afraid he’ll float up and through the ceiling if she lets go, so he tightens his fingers, places his feet in decisive steps against scuffed linoleum.
To them, danger is more than a threat that looms on a distant horizon: they’re out in the storm, weapons drawn, heads uncovered to the mercy of the skies. But—knowing death is near isn’t the same as opening the door to a room within which the better part of Mika’s life lies in uncertain health.
The bed swallows Yuu. Without movement and animation, the illusion of Yuu’s largeness falters; he’s small, thin, dark against bleached blankets. But for all his sudden littleness, he’s still a pit of enormity around which Mika gravitates.
There’re bandages on his arms, perfectly clean except for the faint pink of creeping blood, and Mika touches the gauze with the lightest stroke of his fingertips. His jaw’s bruised but still set at the same familiar angle, less round than even months before.
“Oh,” Shinoa says, flipping through the papers secured at the foot of the bed. “Concussion, assorted scrapes. There’s a chart, but I don’t really know what it means.”
Mika glances at her, the smallest smile on his face, and pulls up a chair. Shinoa leaves the charts and leans against the wall opposite Mika, Yuu between them, and shakes her head.
“I’m going to kill him,” Mika says, voice rough with relief and anger.
“You can try,” Shinoa tells him, flattening her skirt, “But he’s probably some kind of invincible.”
“His idiocy’s a force field,” Mika agrees. He folds his arms on the mattress, leans down to rest his chin on them. “I should’ve gone,” he admits, softer.
“Who knows how it would’ve turned out if you did,” Shinoa says. “Don’t beat yourself up over this, Mika.”
“You know,” he says, shooting her a mulish look, “It’s weird when you’re nice to me.”
Shinoa feigns hurt. “I’m always this nice!”
Mika snorts and settles farther into the bed, ready to sit vigil for however long it takes Yuu to wake. Shinoa, before she leaves to fetch food and coffee, settles her hand on the top of his head. She combs his bangs, pokes the furrowed skin beneath.
“I’ll be back soon,” she says, and leaves him to his pining, pale face turned to Yuu like the moon to sleeping Earth.
…
“Oh, god,” Yuu moans, hissing when his head spins. His body’s stiff and uncooperative when he tries to sit up. He’s covered in gauze and aches a thousand kinds of painful.
“Rise and shine, princess!”
“Gross,” he croaks, squinting at Shinoa as she leans over him. “You’re here.”
“Well,” she says, soft eyes betraying her relief, “I’m not the only one.”
When Yuu frowns, she points down. He follows her finger with his eyes and—
Mika’s asleep with his head on his arms, back bent in such a way Yuu frowns. The room’s only window’s covered with closed blinds, but the little light that streams in drapes itself kindly over Mika’s face. Yuu loses a moment just watching him, something like acidic apprehension burning in him when he realizes he’d almost—lost it all.
“He’s going to want to know what happened,” Shinoa tells him, reading his mind as usual. She perches on the side of Yuu’s bed, and it’s only then that Yuu notices the day-old smudge of mascara under her eyes, the untidiness of her hair.
“What happened…” He remembers adrenaline-touched panic, the hot blood of a Horseman spraying across his face and neck and hands, screaming the commander’s name. “There was a sinkhole.”
“Yuu,” Mika says, voice groggy, “How are you going to kill vampires when you can’t even handle a hole in the ground?” He sits up, rubbing his back, and raises an eyebrow at Yuu.
“Hey-“
“Mikaela,” Shinoa interrupts, “Be nice to him. He just survived a terrifying encounter with an inanimate enemy-“
“I’m going back to sleep,” Yuu grumbles. Exhaustion tugs his eyes closed, washing away his embarrassment and shame in waves that soon smother everything but the lax sinking of his consciousness.
“Ah!” Shinoa’s voice comes through layers of padded distance. “There he goes.”
“Yuu,” Mika says, “Hey, wait, I haven’t yelled at you yet-“
“Later.” He’s already drifting off. “M’tired.”
He thinks he hears Mika laugh and feels warm pressure against his forehead, but—sleep overtakes him to the feeling of warmth and security and he’s—home.
…
“Is he… crying?” Mika asks in a low whisper, leaning close to Yuu’s ear.
Yuu shuffles and grimaces. “Yeah,” he says, “I think so.”
The kid in front of them sniffles and reaches for yet another tissue that Shinoa offers from her pocket. They’re sitting in Guren’s office, waiting for him to return from his latest errand. Awkward silence had greeted Mika and Yuu soon as they’d set foot in the room, and now it coils around their necks like too tight ties, stifling any chance at conversation.
“I’m sorry,” Saotome Yoichi says, not for the first time, or the second, or the third, or the— “I’m just—so happy.”
“Ah,” Mika says, eyeing the hunched curl of his shoulders. He doesn’t sound quite convinced. “It’s no problem.”
“Yoichi,” Shinoa starts, “Have you met Mikaela and Yuichiro Hyakuya before?”
His eyes flick between them. “I haven’t,” he says, offering a smile that’s almost blindsiding in its sincerity. “But I’ve heard things.”
Mika raises an eyebrow. “That sounds… vaguely ominous.”
“Oh!” He jumps, spine straightening, and hurries to correct, “Good things! Well, mostly.”
Yuu mouths mostly to Mika with good humor, and Shinoa hides a smile behind a demure hand.
Yoichi’s ears burn pink. “I m-mean,” he says, waving his hands, “You’re just so-“
“Yuu, Mika,” Guren says, striding through the open door, “Did you make Saotome cry?”
“As if,” Yuu scoffs. “Actually, it was Shinoa. She asked him about his family and he-“
Shinoa hushes him, but it’s too little too late—tears spring to Yoichi’s eyes and his chin crumples. Mika whaps the back of Yuu’s head.
“Great,” Guren says, voice dry. “Shinoa, where’s Kimizuki?”
“Visiting his sister,” she tells him. She’s patting Yoichi’s back in what she hopes is a comforting manner. “Does he need to be here?”
Guren waves a hand and drops into his desk chair. While he reaches for and makes a call with his office phone, Yoichi manages to get himself together—again.
By the time Kimizuki arrives, they’ve managed to do a round of introductions. Yuu kicks off his boots and falls sideways so that his head’s on Mika’s lap. Outside, it starts to rain. The office windows streak gray and fog until the world beyond the room slips out of sight and mind.
“All right,” Guren tells them, arms folded behind his head, booted feet on his desk, “Time for some big news, kids.”
Yuu and Mika snap to attention so fast it’s as though they weren’t trying to destroy each other’s combed hair just seconds before. Lightning flashes, and just as thunder follows in a deep rumbling, Guren changes their lives.
“Squad leader,” Mika says, later, after Guren’s shooed them from his office. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Shinoa.”
“You know I do,” she tells him, face and voice serious. She’s sixteen and tiny and dangerous, but: Mika and Yuu would and will gladly follow her into any nest of evil, have trusted her for years already. Yet, this responsibility—reality as a member of the Moon Demon Company promises little more than death.
“This is great,” Yuu says, and his bloodlust’s so palpable Mika can’t help but smile with the same cruelty despite some great weight settling on his shoulders. “I’m going to kill so many vampires.“
“But, first,” Shinoa says, spinning around to face them, “We’ll need to get you cursed gear and practice until we’re ready.”
Kimizuki and Yuu launch into an argument, disgusted at the thought of working closely with each other, and Yoichi hovers beside them, trying and failing to pull them off each other’s throats. Mika and Shinoa stand side by side, watching the fight unfold.
“Hey,” she says, grabbing his sleeve. He looks down at her with a question on his face. “This is what we wanted, remember?”
He’s offended. “I’m not afraid,” he tells her, but—Yuu’s kicked Kimizuki’s legs out from under him, throws himself down onto his stomach, and Mika has to swallow around a lump of anxiety.
“He’s fine,” she says, guessing at the machinations of his thoughts. “You know he’s plenty strong enough.”
“Yeah.” Kimizuki dodges a punch and throws Yuu off him. “I just-“
“Mikaela.” Her eyes shine with mean wit. “Just kiss the boy.”
Mika rubs the back of his neck. “I hate how smart you are.”
“Mm.” She pokes him in his side and laughs when he jumps. Yuu yells something unintelligible and Yoichi screams, scrambling to get out of Kimizuki and Yuu’s way as they roll by. “You two would be hopeless without me and my smarts.”
“Probably,” he agrees, and indulges in a small moment of physical affection by patting the top of her head. “What do you think about curry for dinner tonight?”
…
They stand in the light together, hand in hand as Mika hauls Yuu over the last concrete barricade. Dawn’s pending in pastels behind them, spreading weak shadows from their feet, and Shinoa waves to them from a promenade farther up.
“Ready?” Mika asks, pulling at Yuu’s hand until the distance between them is less than tangible.
Yuu grins. “Always.”
The night peels away as they strike out onto dangerous ground, lifting the dark, the day’s first rays of light warm across their backs. They’re calamity kids carried from ruin and honed to razor edges, but in this moment they’re together and alive and set into vicious motion.
Kimizuki and Yoichi clamber up behind them and Mika drops Yuu’s hand. The warmth of his fingers through his gloves lingers on the skin of Mika’s wrist just where his pulse rushes in hummingbird beats. Just kiss the boy, Shinoa’d said. Just kiss the boy.
They survive the day outside of their city’s arms. Ash lines the folds in their coats and Kimizuki’s bleeding from a scratch on his face, but they return in whole pieces.
Yuu lingers on the highest ridge of the great wall, legs crossed, demon sword lying across his lap. Mika leaves him for a moment of stewing and brooding and fetches canned food from the barracks below. They share canned peaches and beans, sitting in easy quiet as the day’s light fades.
Yuu pulls out of his stillness to recount his favorite details of the day—Mika inches closer through odd observations and crooked-grin arrogance until Yuu stops midsentence. The sun’s red and broiling on the horizon, tints Mika’s pale hair almost-orange, and Yuu considers the uneasy curve of Mika’s mouth.
It takes him a moment, but he—gets it, eventually. Like most things, this required months of introspection and innumerable nights counting Mika’s breaths from the bottom bunk. Falling in love with his best friend wasn’t part of The Plan, but, he figures, leaning into the heat Mika radiates, it’s not exactly a terrible addition.
They’re not really sure how this kissing thing’s supposed to work, but after they recover from clacking teeth (gently isn’t in Yuu’s vocabulary) they manage something that doesn’t make Yuu want to bury himself alive. It’s warm and nice and—
“Okay,” Yuu says as Mika swipes the back of his hand across his own mouth and pulls a face at the wet smear. “Okay.” Words are hard.
“Same,” Mika says, and then surprises them both with a loud laugh.
“What??” Yuu asks, face awfully red and stricken.
“N-nothing,” Mika wheezes. He falls backwards and laughs again, uncontrollable and half-hysterical.
“You ass,” Yuu cries, and hides behind his arms, “Stop laughing.” But his mouth’s trembling at the corners, and before he can stop himself he’s laughing, too.
The stars blink to life in full glory, bands of cream against the dark, and Mika heaves himself up with glad tears in his eyes when Yuu falls silent. They’re stuck in an instant that will soon end and fall like a domino into another, but for now there’s just warm wind and dark sky and the boundless hope in Mika’s chest when Yuu asks, “Can I kiss you again?”