Disclaimer

The fictional characters, settings, events, and other such elements portrayed herein are based upon the anime Yu Yu Hakusho, originally a manga series created by Togashi Yoshihiro-sama and adapted to the small screen by Fuji TV in Japan and FUNimation Entertainment in the U.S. No copyright infringement is intended.

Summary

How the Sniper fell—in love, and into Sensui's manipulative trap.

This is the story of the childhood, first love, and eventual recruitment of a telekinetic boy named Hagiri Kaname as the first human psychic scouted into the Sensui Seven—told in three chapters.

A/N

Hello, one and all! Mikageshi here! ^-^

I posted this fanfic as my entry to the Yu Yu Hakusho Fanfiction Contest organized by the moderators of the /r/YuYuHakusho subreddit at Reddit dot Com for the month of August 2015—based on the prompt:

"Write a prequel to Yu Yu Hakusho that details the untold history of one or more of the characters."

The following three chapters, then, detail my take on just how the canon YYH character named Hagiri Kaname (alias Sniper) fell—in love, as well as into Sensui Shinobu's manipulative machinations.

To the mods at /r/YuYuHakusho:

Thank you very much for this exciting opportunity to share our YYH fanfiction with the fandom, and for keeping the YYH flame alive!

And without further ado…

Happy reading~! \(^o^)/

DESCENT INTO THE DARKNESS:

The Fall of Hagiri Kaname

"JERK!"

Slanted lavender eyes darted from a blank sheet of paper to a girl in a sky blue apron.

One of Hagiri Kaname's many—too many—female classmates sniffled, huge hazel eyes welling up. "Why does that jerk Rei always pick on me?"

Hot tears blurring her sight, Akasaki Minaku eyed the golden splash on her apron. The class bully of Grade Three, Section Lotus of Mushiyori Elementary had just sloshed paint on her. Again. "What did I ever do to him?"

Nami covered her eyes with her hands and wept into them, sniffing in between sobs.

"Hey." A high-pitched yet male voice sighed into Kaname's ear. "What happened to Akasaki?"

His face as blank as his eyes, Kaname looked away. "The usual."

He dipped a small, thin paintbrush into the cup of murky water between him and his seatmate. The indifferent, uninterested Kaname was already aiming his brush towards his watercolor palette when a low yet female voice caught his attention.

"If you want to cry it out, Nami-chan, then I won't stop you. But it's really no big deal."

That was new to him.

To the nine-year-old boy, the most—no, the only—natural response to someone shedding tears was to stop him or her. "Don't cry." It was as simple as that.

Apparently, not for that classmate of his.

From his desk at the far back of the room, Kaname glared at a wave of sandy brown hair rippling all the way down the girl's back, past her waist, and slowly swaying from side to side as she stooped and studied Nami's apron.

As she wiped her teary eyes with her wrists, Nami suddenly felt a finger running along her torso. "Eeh?" She looked down and found her brunette seatmate spreading out the paint stain on her apron. "Why are you doing that, Setsu-chan? Mama's going to get really mad at me if you dirty my apron even more!"

But the girl with the boyish name continued finger-painting on Nami's apron as if she had heard nothing at all. "It's not as bad as you think." Ice blue eyes met nut brown. "Look."

A tearful, fearful Minaku from up close—and a curious Kaname in denial from afar—blinked at the sky blue apron. A radiant golden sun now shone where the splotch of yellow paint used to lie.

"What did you just do, Setsu-chan? Did you just turn that nasty stain into a sun?" Nami voiced out Kaname's sentiments exactly.

He hated her name. But she herself didn't seem so bad.

"You saw a problem. But I saw art. Now you see it too, ne?"

Kaname harrumphed to himself.

"Stupid. Got paint on her hand."

The ill-tempered third grader had to attend to his watercolor drawing for art class soon.

But he could not look away.

Chapter One

Falling in Love

A green marble whacked into a violet one.

"Ha!" cried a freckled boy on his knees, proudly pointing to the new (dis)arrangement of toy marbles dotting the ground. "Take that, Hagiri!"

"Was that supposed to impress me?"

A confident smirk crossing his face, the now eleven-year-old Hagiri Kaname crouched further down, his chin nearly grazing the playground asphalt. He pressed his right thumb against his curled right pointer finger and expertly flicked another violet marble away. The small glistening ball knocked a blue one right off the boys' chalk circle on the floor.

"Aw, man!" Kaname's freckled playmate slapped a hand on his own forehead. "Y' did it again!"

The fifth grade class representative nudged his glasses back up his nose. "Wow Kaname-kun, you're incredible at this game!" The amazed student officer whirled around. "That marble went so far, I didn't even see where it flew off to!"

"Yeah, where did it go?" The boy with freckles shielded his eyes from the blinding noonday sun high overhead. "Y' better go get it!"

"Aa." Kaname rose to his feet, dusted off the cakes of mud crusting his knees, and eyed his friends suspiciously. "Be right back. Don't touch those marbles."

He had not even taken one step away from them when the kid with freckles accidentally dropped a brown marble he had secretly hidden behind his back. "W-W-What are ya talkin' about? We would never do that!"

Their class representative sweat-dropped.

A distrustful, knowing eyebrow shot up. "Hmph. You better not." Throwing a heated glare at his mischievous playmate, Kaname strode downhill—towards the oldest apple tree in the Mushiyori Elementary schoolyard. "Should be here somewhere…"

He found it. His purple marble had rolled all the way to someone's foot.

"Who's there?" snapped the boy.

He eyed the filthy sneaker right beside his marble, its sole even muddier than his bare knees. Curious yet cautious lavender eyes wandered from the stranger's feet to legs clothed in wrinkled knee-length white socks.

Then a skirt.

It was a girl. Not just any girl. The one with the awfully ugly name.

She was alone again. With her slouched back propped against the trunk of a most miserable-looking apple tree, Kaname's even more miserable-looking classmate was busily penciling on the drawing book on her lap. She did it every day—doodling away in that trusty sketchpad of hers with neither a care in the world nor for it.

Kaname treaded closer to his preoccupied classmate of five years now, unaware that he was quieting his steps. She did not look up at him. Even when he stood right before her… towered over her… and glared upon her face.

And even when he hunched down and picked up his strayed marble, she remained entirely absorbed in her own world.

Wasn't she lonely like that? Didn't she ever want to just put the pencil down and play some fun game?

Kaname cleared his throat, his pride forbidding him from direct eye contact with her. "Wanna play?"

Was this girl deaf or dumb or something?

She still did not look up. So much for trying to be polite! That proved to be a waste of time and saliva.

"Hmph." Dissatisfaction crumpling his face, an offended Kaname turned his back on her and returned to his friends. Neither of them knelt on the asphalt anymore.

"Hey, what took you so long, Kaname-kun?" asked their class rep, adjusting his spectacles again.

"Yeah! My knees hurt real bad already!" The freckled boy picked off the tiny pebbles that had dug into the skin of his bare, grubby knees. "Was another chick hittin' on ya again?"

"Huh?" A suddenly uncomfortable Kaname blinked. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"We saw the skirt behind you, Hagiri!" The freckled boy grinned impishly, clacking his tongue twice and winking at his heartthrob friend. "What did she say?"

A long pause.

"Nothing."

"Aw, come on! Y' really expect me to believe—"

With one hand on his eyeglasses, the class rep took another glance towards the apple tree. "Ah, but it was her."

Smoldering lavender eyes narrowed.

"I can believe she didn't say anything to you," nodded the bespectacled boy. "I don't think she talks to anyone else in our class aside from Akasaki-chan."

"Some people like having just one friend instead of a lot," shrugged Kaname. "Mayonaka could be one of those people."

"'Mayonaka'?" exclaimed the boy with freckles, disapproval scribbled all over his face. "If y' know what's good for ya, Hagiri, you'd stay far, far away from tha' weirdo!"

"'Weirdo'?" repeated Kaname. She was more of a snob, and could be artistic, but a weirdo?

"You heard me! She's weird!" Kaname's now-excited freckled friend gripped both his shoulders. It didn't hurt, but just what was the big deal about that girl with the boy name? "I saw 'er talking to a flower once! A flower, Hagiri!"

The student officer's glasses hid his eyes from view. "Actually, I, too, have seen her talking to a tree." He cleared his throat nervously, all too aware of—and, to some extent, shameful for—backstabbing their notoriously unusual classmate. "She's forgetful with shoes, too. After Physical Ed class, when we change from our rubber shoes back to school shoes, she always forgets one shoe." He sweat-dropped. "As class rep, I have to keep reminding her of it."

"An' one time, in art class, she used fruits and vegetables as her paintbrushes!" gasped the freckled boy. "She dipped a banana, an okra stalk, a tomato slice, and some other stuff into paint an' made 'er project out of 'em!"

Kaname collected the marbles scattered around them. "What's wrong with that?" He stuffed the glassy balls into his pants pockets. "That was kinda creative."

"Y' can say that now, but jus' wait 'til you hear what happened after art class!" The boy with freckles pointed out. "She ate 'em for lunch!"

"So?"

"If y' haven't gotten the memo yet, Hagiri, that's really, really weird!"

"Nothing wrong with it." The unfazed boy shrugged it off. "As long as she didn't eat the parts with paint."

In complete surrender, the freckled boy threw his hands up in the air and groaned. "Dude, what's wrong wit' you?"

"A-A-Anou…"

His elbow on his desk and his palm cradling his chin, a visibly bored Kaname cracked a drowsy, misty eye open. Yet another petite hand shyly slipped a frilly pink envelope onto his table.

"F-f-for you, Hagiri-sama!" A silky black scalp fearfully bobbed up and down before him. Another girl from his class was wasting his time. She was the third one today. "P-P-Please read it!"

He had not even opened his other eye when the furiously blushing girl bowed again and broke into a mad dash away from him.

Not again. A sigh escaped his lips just as the school bell rang.

"Oh, no…" moaned a familiar melodious voice. Kaname's eyes darted from the love letter on his tabletop to a most distressed Nami. "Lunch period is over, but Setsu-chan isn't back yet. Where could she be?"

Suddenly, a bolt of thunder rolled and crackled in the sky. Within seconds, heavy nimbus clouds shadowed over the City of Mushiyori and spilled brimming bucketfuls of rain.

Still leaning on his classroom desk with his elbow, Kaname buried his cheek even deeper into his palm. "If she's still out there…"

She wasn't.

"SETSU-CHAN!"

Fifth-grade heads whirled to find a soaking wet figure by their doorway.

A now comforted yet still concerned Nami rushed to her rain-drenched best friend. "You're late! Good thing Sensei isn't here yet! Where have you been?"

"People-watching." The girl behind dripping brown bangs mumbled nonchalantly, as if nothing was amiss. A wet mop of long hair clinging onto her back, Setsu raised her now-soggy sketchpad for Nami to see. "Then people-drawing."

"That's it?" Shaking her head in stubborn disapproval, Nami ushered Setsu back to their adjacent seats, ignoring the watery trail and muddy shoeprints that her best friend was leaving on their recently waxed classroom floor. "Why'd you take so long?"

"Well, I was drawing three people at first," Setsu eyed her drawing book, its pages now damp to the touch. Her light pencil drafts—they were ruined! An unspoken yet nonetheless pained loneliness crossed her face. "But I changed my mind at the last minute."

Nami reached down Setsu's back and wrung sandy brown hair dry. "Why?"

"One of them suddenly stood out."

Suddenly, Kaname found himself biting back a gasp. The girl with the boyish name… She was headed straight for him.

"Mengo."

He blinked in confounded confusion. "Men… go…?"

She tore a moist page out of her pad. "Aa. I noticed your marble earlier. I heard your question, too. But I was too caught up in the moment to stop drawing. So," she handed the now blurry pencil painting to him. "Here you go. I hope you don't mind it wet."

Lavender eyes narrowed at the paper. "What's this?"

"Not one of those letters you're used to getting," chuckled Setsu to herself as she weaved past classroom chairs while returning to her own. She shot him a sidelong glance over her shoulder. "I don't know how to write one of those. And I don't believe that I want to know, either."

Kaname found himself face-to-face with a rough yet remarkably realistic portrait of himself. So that was how he looked playing marbles! Her portrayal of his eyes was noticeably larger than how they appeared in a mirror—all his limbs were ridiculously out of proportion as well—but hey, the artist was but eleven years of age, after all.

Finally. He had finally beheld one of the pages of that secret sketchbook of hers with his own eyes. Now he understood why she always kept it by her side. Her devotion to drawing was paying off.

And below the bottommost toy marble in the illustration were the words:

"Thank you. You aren't so weird to me yourself."

"Mayonaka…"

Lost lavender eyes strayed from the artwork to its artist.

"… You heard us."

"Akasaki!"

"Haaai!" A dainty, hyperactive hand shot up. Nami scurried to the front and playfully pounced onto the platform beneath the blackboard. "Sensei, minna, this is my drawing of my family!" She pointed to the part of the page wherein she had penciled two stick figures with oversized heads and triangles for skirts. "This is me and my mama!" Then she motioned towards a short stick figure with another triangle-skirt and a longer one without. "And this is Papa and Mifuyu-'nee-chan! Me and Mama live here in Japan, but Papa and 'Nee-chan moved away!"

"Where did they go?" An interested girl from the front row piped up.

"Very far away." The naïve Nami even nodded for emphasis. "So far away, Mama said we'll never see them again!"

Sorrowful blue eyes hid beneath brown hair. Her parents must have had a divorce, Setsu thought, biting her lip. And she doesn't even know it.

"Sometimes I miss my 'Nee-chan…" murmured a wistful, dreamy Nami, more to herself than to her audience. "She sings very well! She's joined many singing contests and won! Someday, I want to be just like her!"

"Thank you, Akasaki-chan!" The fifth-grade art teacher of Mushiyori Elementary applauded, encouraging her students to follow her lead. "Just keep practicing, and you could have a singing career in the future! Next—Mayonaka!"

Mayonaka Setsuki rose from her seat and sighed to herself, her calm silence hushing her classmates as well. Never had she been fond of public speaking—especially before attentive yet sinfully judgmental eyes. Oh, well.

Here goes nothing.

Setsu stood before them and held her family portrait up. The class held their breaths, oohed, and ahhed at the lifelike masterpiece right before their eyes. No one—arguably, not even her best friend Akasaki Minaku—fully, truly understood the class weirdo, but everyone was well aware of her flair for fine art.

"My father's name is Tsuzuku. My mother, Kiseki. We are only three, but that does not make us any less happy a family."

Their Sensei nodded in agreement. "That's right, Mayonaka-chan! But there is one thing I want to ask…"

So she noticed. An eleven-year-old hand, calloused from years of everyday household chores as well as tireless practice sketches, threatened to ball into a fist. Darn it.

"In your drawing, why is your mother farther from you than your father is?"

A blue gaze fell. "That is because she is in real life." I don't really think I did anything wrong by including her here. She may be gone, but she will always be a member of our family…

A hand from the back of the room flailed for her attention. "Did she go far, far away like Minaku-chan's daddy and sister?"

"You could say that." But even farther. "But I still believe that we'll see each other again someday." Which I know is less likely than Nami-chan seeing her father and sister again, but I'm not deluding myself, anyway…

"I'm sure you will, Mayonaka-chan. Thank you for sharing with us." Their schoolteacher nodded as she clapped. "Next—Hagiri!"

"Aa." Hagiri Kaname could not care any less for his turn in the limelight. As he and Setsu passed each other, violet flames met eye to eye with blue ice.

What? Blue eyes narrowed menacingly. Are you on to me?

Lavender eyes returned the defiant glare as quickly as they then looked away. "A family of three isn't small. Mine is." He pinched the top middle of his sheet of bond paper, revealing a blank page for all to see. "It's not worth it—drawing my family. Dad's been dead for years. It's just Mom and me at home."

The members of the Hagiri Kaname Fan Club gasped and gushed all over in perfect unison.

"Awww! Hagiri-sama doesn't have a daddy anymore!"

"Oh, that's so sad!"

"My poor baby!"

Seated at the far corner of the room with her arms folded across her chest, Setsu rolled her eyes and grunted to herself. So he lacks one parent as well. Big deal.

"Don't you and your mother ever miss your father, Hagiri-kun?" asked their art sensei, more upset with the sudden news of death in the young Kaname's family than his blatant disregard for her homework assignments.

Kaname shrugged, casually jamming one hand into his pants pocket. "Mom's been seeing this Kitajima guy. He has a son and a daughter. If they hit it off, I could have a new dad and siblings."

"KYAAA!" squealed the Hagiri Kaname Fan Club with one voice. "We might still have a father-in-law!"

He couldn't possibly marry all of you! An exasperated Setsu massaged her temples. Ohhh, rabid fangirls. So reliably annoying.

Stronger, broader fingers gripped one diamond-shaped crisscross of metal wires.

Kaname inched closer to the wired railing bordering the rooftop of the Mushiyori Junior High School building. Every wall of the roof deck had been fenced with crisscrossed wires for the safety of students.

In his opinion, they didn't need the fences. At their age, junior high students should already know way better than to jump off the top floor of any four-storey building. Then again, the school did accommodate some pretty suicidal psychopaths like several of his classmates were…

One of his hands still clenching the wires of the barrier before him, he stuffed his other hand into his pants pocket and stared at the students slowly, casually entering and exiting the building four floors beneath him. From where he stood, Kaname had a bird's-eye view of them all—small, insect-like figures leisurely crawling into their haven and hive.

He closed his eyes. "This isn't so bad." A secret smile curled his lips. "People-watching."

At that moment, Kaname retrieved two small spherical objects from inside his pocket. For a while, he eyed the blue and violet marbles in his palm, reminiscing of those good old grade school days when he could just kneel anywhere he wanted, scatter his pebble-sized toys before him, and flick his troubles away.

He tossed the two marbles up into the air—and had already caught them both with one sweeping grab when suddenly—

"Hey pretty boy!"

Kaname whirled to the fire exit door. One by one, three rugged, ragged boys from his class stepped into the view deck, the tallest, stoutest one in the lead.

"I see ya haven't lost yer marbles yet!" gibed the leader of the freshman class bullies, even elbowing his accomplices to sensationalize his timely taunt. The two smaller boys flanking him sniggered shamelessly.

"GYAHAHAHA! Good one, Rei!"

Hagiri Kaname held little to no respect for suck-ups. They disgusted him. Since they were never the masterminds themselves, they could eventually feign innocence and claim no willful involvement in any incident that backfires on them. To him, they deserved to be condemned even more than their leaders—for at least the brains of the outfit actually had "brains" to speak of, while they merely played the role of puppets, mindlessly fulfilling their bosses' every whimper and whim.

But in the case of this messed-up bunch… Even their leader was no cunning intelligence scheming in the shadows. All three of them were equally disgraceful.

"Aren'tcha a li'l too old t' be playin' wit' 'em marbles, pretty boy?"

"What do you care?" spat Kaname, lavender eyes narrowing, burning. "What do you want?"

"Hmph!" The burly Rei spat on the ground and heavily trudged towards him, his cohorts following right by his side. "As if you got anythin' I want—"

"But Rei, aren'tcha pissed at 'im 'cause that hot babe y' like likes 'im—"

"SHUT YER TRAP, WILL YA?!" Rei instantly jabbed his idiot subordinate square in the jaw and turned back to Kaname. "Where were we? Oh, yeah! Y' don't got anythin' on ya, pal! You make me sick!"

The bully imposed himself before his smaller, lankier classmate. Rei had grown three inches taller over the vacation. And worse, he knew it. The massive thug seized Kaname by the polo shirt collar, stocky hands all too ready to wring some scrawny neck.

Kaname harrumphed to the brute's face. "If this is about some girl, leave me out of it." He squeezed his fist around two marbles digging into his palm. "Just ask her out—if you dare."

"YOU CALLIN' ME A COWARD?!"

Just then, Rei hoisted the shorter, slender boy clean off his feet.

Kaname glanced downward and winced to himself. This bastard was now stronger than ever before. He himself had never been lifted so high off the ground in his life.

"If she turns you down, that's not my problem."

"KUSO! Yer gonna pay for that wit' yer pretty li'l face!"

The frequent bully victim ducked in time to dodge an incoming fist. Rei soon found his tightly balled punching fist stuck in between a diamond of wires in the fence. "WHAT THE—?!" Eyes nearly popping out of their sockets, he summoned his sidekicks to his side. "YOU IDIOTS! HELP ME GET OFF THIS!"

Kaname gritted his teeth. "This is pointless. Just leave me alone!"

"Y' kiddin' me?" Rei and his cohorts heaved all together and wrenched his fist off the diamond-shaped gap in the metal wiring. "I'm jus' gettin' started, pretty boy wit' the pretty face an' the pretty name!"

At that, a frown crossed Kaname's face. "'Name'?"

"Don't tell me it never hit'cha!" scoffed Rei, the words rolling off his lips with contempt. "'Kaname'! What a girly name! Fits a bitch like you!"

Of course he had realized it a long, long time ago—much earlier in life than this pathetic bully ever had. 'Kaname' was indeed a unisex name. He had never been too fond of it. In fact, he had spent his entire childhood trying to come up with some other cooler, more masculine name for himself—even just an alias that oozed mystery… machismo.

"Hmph." The slighted Kaname seared the bully alive with nothing more than smoldering eyes, secretly agreeing with the derogatory remark yet openly resenting it all at once.

"How many lives must you make miserable in one day?"

Startled gasps escaping their lips, four boys whirled towards the direction of that low, mellow voice.

Much as he hated to—and would never!—admit it, the voice never failed to soak and soothe Kaname's senses. It wasn't tiny and shrill, like those of other girls his age. A mysterious maturity calmed it more and more with each passing school year.

And this year, she didn't sound thirteen at all.

"Had I been born male, the name 'Kaname' would be just fine with me." Mayonaka Setsuki emerged from the fire exit door, her arms crossed before her chest.

Rei and his accomplices finally wriggled his fist loose and yanked it off the rooftop railing. "Mayonaka! Who asked you anyway, ya weird li'l freak?"

Kaname's expression flinched. Bullying him was one thing. But if those bastards dared to lay one finger on that girl—

"You must not have any real problem with Hagiri-kun, ne? Considering the only fault that you could find in him is his parent-given name—"

"Get lost, Mayonaka!" barked a minion, one of whose cheeks was visibly redder than the other.

"Or should we call ya 'Setsu' instead?" Rei smirked at the only female student in their midst. "It ain't a girly, pretty name to me!"

Kaname took one step forward, willingly nearing himself to danger. "That's enough!"

"Really?" Setsu smirked back at him. "Last I checked, 'Rei' isn't so manly a name, either."

"CHIKUSHOOOOO!" Rei stampeded towards her, his dull gray eyes clouding, blinded by a vivid mental image of her face ripped to shreds. Setsu was already raising her hand, her palm facing away from her, when a stone flew straight into Rei's right eye. "ITTEEEEE!"

A gasp escaped Setsu's lips. A few inches away from her, Kaname held his left palm up, his right pointer and thumb curled together right above it.

"You asked for it."

"HAGIRI!" The leader of the first-year bullies slapped a hand over his injured eye. "THAT HURT, Y' FU—"

"Go to the clinic. Now," snapped a visibly upset Setsu, turning to Rei's two friends now frozen in a corner. "Go with him as well. He shouldn't go blind if no nerve was damaged."

"O-Okay!" stammered the two bungling sidekicks, promptly steering their blinded boss out the door.

Once their backs had disappeared from her view, Setsu turned to her other classmate bending over to pick up the projectile that had stabbed their class bully in the eye—a violet marble.

His smoldering lavender eyes glared at her ice blue. "Are you on their side?"

"No." But icy eyes refused to melt. "I believe that you have every right to defend yourself from bullies picking on you. But I don't appreciate how you handled this."

Purple flames blazed even more. "But I did it to save you—"

"Thank you for that!"

Kaname gasped at that, despite himself. Never in their many years as classmates had he heard her low, mellow voice yell out loud.

"But you still could have blinded him!"

The headstrong, willful boy had no intention of losing this argument. "Should I have just stood back and let him treat you like some punching bag—"

"We had other options. We could have done something else," Setsu pointed out. "I could have just run to the door and screamed for you to follow. And we could have just locked them in here until we tell the school authorities about what they tried—but failed—to do to us." She bit her lip, a tranquil remorse eclipsing her face. "Think about it. As it turned out, we had hurt them—not the other way around."

"What are you so guilty about?" Kaname scoffed. "You only hurt him with words. That mouth of yours got you right into trouble. Next time, don't say anything that could provoke him in the first place!"

"One stops being a victim when one strikes back."

That was random of her. But she hardly surprised him anymore. He was used to her by now.

"No. Not all the time." An unconvinced Kaname shook his head. "There is such a thing as self-defense."

"If you say so." A defiant Setsu looked away from him. "One stops being a victim when one strikes first."

"Still no. It still depends on the situation."

This time, Setsu grunted to herself, more exasperated than ever. "Fine. If you really want to be all politically correct about this: One stops being a victim when one strikes one's attacker with the intention of hurting him."

"You're hell-bent on telling me I stopped being a victim and turned into an attacker just now."

"Oh, but I never said anything like that, Hagiri-kun. But if you think so, then I must say that I agree."

Lavender eyes narrowed. This girl with the boy name… That voice so peaceful, yet so inviting of big trouble…

"But our classmates," Kaname retorted in his defense. "They're mean. They use every opportunity to make you, me, and everyone else feel bad—"

"But as long as we did not do anything wrong, we should have nothing to feel bad about."

For a short, holy while, all fell still and silent.

Suddenly, Kaname strode towards her, eyeing the violet marble between his pointer and thumb. "Keep it." He took her hand and pressed the orb onto her palm. "If I don't have it, I can't use it to attack again."

And without another word, he stepped through the fire exit door and left.

For another short, holy while, Setsu peacefully gazed upon the small ball now cradled in her hand.

"I know that you meant well…"

Shy, thin lips threatened to curl up.

"… Hagiri-kun."

Sighing to herself, Setsu wilted onto her bed, tugging the Mushiyori girls' ribbon off her collar. As soon as her head flopped onto her pillow, she folded one arm behind her head and undid the topmost button of her blouse. "What a day."

She jammed an exhausted hand into the breast pocket of her school blouse and fished for a violet-colored marble. She eyed it closely.

Violet… Smoky as those smoldering eyes…

"I might have been too hard on him."

Sighing to himself, Kaname wilted onto his bed, tugging the Mushiyori boys' necktie off his collar. As soon as his head flopped onto his pillow, he folded one arm behind his head and undid the topmost button of his polo. "What a day."

He jammed a guilty hand into the side pocket of his school pants and fished for a blue-colored marble. He eyed it closely.

Blue… Glassy as those chilling eyes…

"I hate it when she's right!"

A pointer and thumb casually fingered a violet marble between them.

"Why did I assume that he was capable of intentionally aiming at that creep's eye?" Blue eyes narrowed. "Is it because…"

Setsu's fist clenched and swallowed a marble whole.

"… his Spirit Energy is much stronger now?"

A playful hand casually tossed a blue marble into the air.

"Why did I do that?" Violet eyes narrowed. "I could have just left her alone!"

Kaname's fist clenched and swallowed a marble whole.

"Troublemaker!"

So Nami-chan has choir practice… Father will come home from work late, as usual… Lost in thought, Setsu kicked the stand of her mountain bike off the ground and began pedaling away. Looks like it's just me and my sketchpad again tonight.

Suddenly, the front wheel of her bicycle ran over a bump on the gravel.

And within seconds, she found pedaling difficult… grueling… next to impossible. Her front tire now appeared much narrower than it once was. Did I just get a flat?

She parked her feet onto the ground and dismounted her bike. Hn. A brutish grumble boiling in her throat, she knelt upon jagged asphalt and inspected her quickly deflating rubber tire. So I did. Good thing I'm still inside the school. But how—

"Your front tire's flat."

Where did he come from?

"I know," Setsu said matter-of-factly, not even bothering to look up at the nosy newcomer.

An ignored—and consequently insulted—Hagiri Kaname folded his arms across his chest. "Hmph! There you go again! That mouth of yours is a real troublemaker, Mayonaka!"

"But I was just telling you that I already know—"

"Do you want my help or not?"

She merely shook her head. "Thanks, but no, thanks. I would rather not be indebted to you—"

"I wasn't actually asking," scoffed a snide Kaname, taking her bicycle by its handlebar. "You're coming with me whether you like it or not."

"Hn. Someone's trying to sound less helpful than he really is," chuckled a sarcastic Setsu, raising a knowing eyebrow.

His violet flames glared at her blue ice. "Shut up."

His right hand pushing her wobbly bicycle forward, Kaname eyed the crooked nail in between his left pointer and thumb. "I saw Rei and his guys with a box of nails this morning." He shot a sidelong glance at the girl steering his own bike alongside him. "Think they could have had something to do with your—"

"As far as I'm concerned, a pesky nail on the road deflated my tire," Setsu studied the black mountain bike in her care. His bike, she grudgingly confessed to herself. It's so well-maintained. Even the spokes of his tires are clean through and through. "I don't believe in attaching human faces to what could have been mere circumstance."

"Well, aren't you being nice." His young baritone dripped heavily of sarcasm. "For once."

"Hn. You mean I'm never?"

"You're nice to the wrong people."

"You're mean, Hagiri-kun. I don't know what your rabid fangirls see in you at all—"

"What?" A suddenly wide-eyed Kaname blinked. "What did you just call our classmates?"

"Not all of them. Only those who fawn over you so much—"

"Did you just call them 'rabid'?"

"Oh, clean your ears more often." A gruff, harrumphing Setsu looked away. "I don't want to have to repeat myself all the time."

"Or 'rapid'?" Kaname continued as if she had uttered nothing in edgewise at all. "Or 'rabbit'?"

Is he serious? Setsu's face contorted into a sour, awful mess. "Hagiri-kun, you sound stu—"

"Careful, Mayonaka." A smug smirk lit his face. "Your smile is showing."

True enough, her lips were threatening to curl up at any moment in spite of herself. "If you don't want to see it, then don't make me laugh in the first place."

"But I want you to."

Wh… What? Setsu froze. Uh… Is there something wrong with you?

"You're always…" Kaname cleared his throat and looked away, visibly far more than uncomfortable in his own skin. "… sad."

So? Big deal. Why would you… "I'm just not as bouncy and bubbly as our other classmates, but I'm fine—"

"Your mom's been dead for years, hasn't she?"

Setsu bit back a gasp. So he did figure it out! Since when…?

Her sudden silence struck him as unusual. "This is weird," Kaname chuckled to himself. "That mouth of yours all quiet and not getting you into trouble."

Setsu stared at him blankly, not knowing what to say and not wanting to say anything, either.

"Your eyes told me." He tossed the nail into the trash bin they had just passed. "Years ago. In art class."

And it took us this long… "You must have read my body language at that time—"

"What 'body language'?" He scoffed. "I told you, your eyes can talk!"

"Not literally," Setsu casually lifted Kaname's rear bike tire off a pothole in the road. "If you so insist, then what are they telling you right now?"

He stopped towing her bicycle and locked eyes with hers. At times those blue orbs looked so cold that they were unspeakably inhuman. This was one of those times. "Our classmates," he spat with disgust. "They're wrong about you. You're not weird. They just can't understand how your mind works. And no matter how hard I try, I can't ever figure you out myself."

Dimples shyly revealing themselves on the corners of her cheeks, Setsu grinned at him for the first time in both their lives. "So I'm not such a class anathema after all."

"A what?" Kaname cocked a confused brow.

Hagiri-kun, are you… blushing? "Still believe I'm not as weird as they claim?"

"Getting less and less sure by the minute."

She chuckled to herself. Oh, humans can be so amusing.

They walked each other's bikes all the way to the corner gasoline station.

Kaname pulled the hose beside a box-shaped apparatus and attached the end of the hose to the air valve of Setsu's deflated front tire.

He seems experienced with this… "Hagiri-kun, have you done this before?"

"You bet." The thirteen-year-old boy pushed the control buttons of the box-like machine, masterfully adjusting its settings. "You don't know how many times that stupid Rei and his guys gave me a flat while I wasn't looking!" He double-checked the connection between the hose and the tire, and pressed the Start button. "See this?" He pointed to the box, intending to impress her. "It's called the pneumatic pump."

"'Pneumatic'?" repeated Setsu, the technical term seemingly impacting her more than he did. "It has something to do with pneumonia, ne?"

"Maybe," shrugged Kaname, chagrined over his failed attempt at showing her his smarts. "Both the pump and the disease have something to do with air. Air in tires… in people's lungs…"

Word association. Setsu regarded Kaname secretly. He's not too bad.

"Dad died of pneumonia." His lavender eyes hid beneath raven hair. "What did your mom die of?"

Her blue eyes hid beneath caramel hair. You will never let this go, ne? A calloused hand rolled into a tight fist.

"Childbirth."

For a long, windy while, the two shared a still, sorrowful silence.

"Mengo." Setsu's trademark apology dropped not from her own lips, but his. "I'm sure it wasn't your fault."

Her blue eyes widened. Hagiri-kun, you just—

"See, I've figured that out, too. That's the way you apologize—your own version of 'gomen.' Give me more." A mischievous, meaningful smirk lit his face. "I want to solve you."

Setsu shook her head—slowly, carefully. "I'm not a puzzle, Hagiri-kun." You must never know… "Not one of those kiddy games that you used to play."

… who I truly am.

"Hey, those 'kiddy games' were fun," retorted the playful little boy in Kaname. "If you want, I could teach you to play—"

"And why do you believe that I would ever want to learn of those?"

He shrugged. "I've never seen you play any games with our classmates. So I thought you just didn't know how. Maybe your dad forgot to teach you how to have fun. Made you grow up too fast."

So you believe I don't act our age, then? It's not because Mother passed on too early… "How about you, Hagiri-kun? Did your mother raise you the same way?"

… but because thirteen is not my real age.

Kaname bent down and took the hose off the air valve of Setsu's bike tire. "Nope. She told me to grow up whenever I want."

I am older than you mistakenly believe I am, Hagiri Kaname.

"All done." He gave her newly inflated tire a casual kick to test its solidity. "You can ride this baby home now."

Much older.

"Actually, I…" Just then, Setsu knocked herself on her temple lightly, penalizing herself for what she was about to confess. "… don't want to. Not yet."

His lavender eyes suddenly blazed aflame. "I know where we can go."

A reddish pink sun shamefully blushed at the two, hiding from them in between mountains across the horizon. It was getting late. The swings of the Yukimi City Park playground creaked and groaned under their weight, but neither of them minded.

"How old is your bike?" Short, broken raven hair flailed with the crisp dusk wind.

Her swing swayed backward just as his went forward. "I've been riding it since we were ten." His question took her by surprise. "Why?"

"It looks that old, all right!" chuckled Kaname, the metal chains of his swing laughing along with him. "Why don't you ask your old man to buy you a new one? Tell him you've outgrown that one."

"I don't need a new one," murmured a tranquil Setsu, shaking her head. "It still works perfectly fine."

"Mayonaka, it's rusty in places I can't even reach."

"Well, I still wouldn't want my father to spend for a new one anytime soon." Her eyelids slid closed on their own, as they always did when a soft, kind wind combed her hair. "Single parenthood must be hard enough as it is without me imposing an impractical wish-list upon him."

Kaname harrumphed. "I'm not as thoughtful. Mom knows I want a motorcycle soon."

Languid eyelids suddenly snapped back open and blinked. "But your bicycle still works perfectly well—"

"It's too slow."

Setsu heaved a hopeless sigh. "You're spoiled, Hagiri Kaname."

"No. I'm normal for our age. You're not."

One hand still hanging on to one of the metal chains of her swing, she massaged her temple with her free hand. "You're a pain."

"Sorry." Kaname hung his head low.

"You kept my daughter out this late?"

His elbows on their dining table, the man of the Mayonaka household parted his fingers and pressed their tips together to form a steeple. Setsu's human father had been restlessly sitting—not to mention waiting for his only child—in their dining room since he arrived home.

An accountable, guilt-ridden Setsu stepped in between them. "I lost track of time. Please leave Hagiri-kun out of this. He was only keeping me company."

"My point exactly…! You wouldn't have gotten home this late if he wasn't 'keeping you company'!"

Sighing more in defeat than acceptance, a crestfallen Setsu turned to the boy at their front door. "Mengo, Hagiri-kun. You don't deserve this."

Lavender orbs took refuge beneath raven hair. The apologetic Kaname refused to meet anyone else's eyes. "Again, I'm sorry."

"You should be."

A fuming Mayonaka Tsuzuku slammed the condominium door smack on the boy's face.

Setsu felt a headache coming on. A calloused drawing hand massaged a pulsing temple. "Why? Was it because I arrived home criminally late, or because he just happened to be male?"

The authoritarian father ignored her question altogether. "Go to your room."

Resisting all irrational bodily urges, the dismayed daughter turned her back on her overprotective single parent and obeyed his order with neither problem nor protest. She closed her bedroom door behind her and leaned her back against it, heaving a long, heavy sigh. This is not going to be easy.

Have a safe trip home, Hagiri-kun.

Why had they never been seatmates? Why was he always assigned to sit rows and rows behind her? From his classroom chair, all he could see of her was her hair.

Hers was the longest hair in their class now. He secretly, silently hoped that she would never have it cut. It stirred a fond memory in him. He just loved nuzzling into his mother's soft brown coat of locks as a coddled, toddled child.

Suddenly, from the corner of his eye, Kaname spotted two male hands inching closer and closer to that glorious head of hair. The boy sitting directly behind Setsu was slowly, carefully tying handfuls of her hair around the back of her seat.

"Idiot," Kaname muttered to himself, gripping the small white pencil eraser in his hand. "Don't think I don't see what you're doing."

Why couldn't she feel what was going on behind her back—literally? Oh, right. She must be busy either furiously jotting down notes or doodling in her notebook.

Most likely doodling. As usual.

Refusing to take his eyes off the ongoing practical joke in their midst, Kaname pinched the white chunk of rubber between his right pointer and thumb.

"Get mad at me if you want. But I don't want you getting up from your seat and carrying it with you."

And in the blink of an eye, a rubber eraser knocked a prank-pulling hand away.

"Itte!" cried the prankster, breaking the holy silence in the room. The junior high sophomores of section three all whirled to eye him curiously. The lecturer scribbling on the blackboard paused and raised a suspicious eyebrow at him.

But Setsu knowingly glared at another boy.

It was you, ne? Those cold blue eyes of hers… They pointed an imaginary accusatory finger straight at him. What did he do?

Reveling in a private victory, Kaname smirked at her from all the way across the room. "Tell you later."

They had planned on doing it for some time now. Finally, Setsu and Nami pushed their desks together, facing each other's, right by the Year Two Class Three door. They will rearrange them back to normal after lunch, anyway.

"Are you serious, Setsu-chan? You haven't had a crush on anyone your whole life?"

Nami raised her chopsticks to her lips, shoving a heap of glutinous white rice into her mouth. "Buth we're oh-ready churning fifcheen! It'ch rearry, rearry rare for girrsh rike ush not to rike anyone at aw-ll!"

"Nami." A brutish grumble boiled in Setsu's throat. "Kindly swallow before you speak."

"Okay." Nami hurriedly gulped down the last of her rice. "Hey, I know what you're doing! You're changing our topic again like you always do!" Her cheeks puffed and pinked all over as she pouted. "Are you avoiding this conversation because you do already like someone and you're just not telling me?"

Setsu brought the rim of a cup to her lips and quietly sipped her spicy soup. Then she looked up. "I don't think I see anyone that way, Nami-chan. But I do enjoy drawing someone. Aside from you and my father, of cour—"

"WHO?" Minaku practically sprung from her seat in senseless, giddy excitement. "Tell me! Tell me! Tell me!"

Setsu sighed at her best friend's hyperactive energy. "Nami-chan, you must promise me that you will never—I repeat, never—even dare speak his name. That is, if you manage to guess who he is."

"Whaaat? No fair, Setsu-chan!" Pouting cutely again, Nami crossed her arms before her chest and harrumphed. "I want to know his name!"

"You might figure it out for yourself after I tell you everything else about him…" Small, shy lips curled up. "… if only you would let me…"

"Okay!" Excited, impatient hands clapped together. "Go!"

"He is Japanese, just like we are."

"Uh-huuuh…" Nami nodded mechanically, almost like a toy bobble-head.

"In junior high school as well."

Nami's hazel eyes widened. "Ooh! He's our age!"

"I can't say." Setsu's gaze fell. "He lives with his mother."

"A mama's boy!" cried Nami, snapping her fingers. She couldn't believe it. The distant, disinterested Mayonaka Setsuki actually had a secret someone to share with her! They had known each other since they were six, yet Nami had neither known nor heard of Setsu's secret human art subject before. Such a mystery!

"Unfortunately, he no longer has a father."

"Wait…" A brain wave washed over Nami. "Is… he… who… I… think… he… is…?"

"Don't say it."

"But—"

All of a sudden, icy blue eyes sent even icier shivers down Nami's spine. "If you want me to go on, then please, don't say it."

An intimidated Nami sighed in resignation. "Okay."

"Something makes him… different."

"'Different'?" echoed Nami, blinking repeatedly in confounded confusion. "'Different' how?"

"Unique. Not like anyone else in this world."

The bridge of Nami's nose wrinkled. "I don't get it."

"He's strong. He gets into many fights, though. At least he never starts them."

"I'm losing you, Setsu-chan!" moaned a Nami seemingly suffering from throes of actual physical pain.

"And lastly, when you spell his name in English—"

"Mou, Setsu-chan!" A suddenly chibi Nami magically raised a picket sign of protest from out of nowhere. "Just give it to me in Japanese!"

Setsu refused with a vigorous shake of her head, an annoyed yet amused chuckle escaping her lips. "When you spell his name in English…" she repeated. "… it has six letters… and begins with a…"

Her fingers tingling while touching her lips, Nami held her breath.

"… 'K'."

A stunned Nami staggered back in her seat, jerking it forward and nearly toppling her rice bowl off her desk. "So it is—!"

"I can't say." Her eyes now closed, Setsu calmly took another sip of her soup.

"Are you sure you just like drawing him?" Nami grinned toothily, meaningfully. "You know Setsu-chan, if you've been drawing this guy for a long time now, you could learn to love—"

"I have known him for years," Setsu responded especially quietly, her eyes still closed. "But I don't love him. I just don't want to…"

"'To'…?"

"… make the same mistake again."

Behind the Year Two Class Three door, smoldering lavender eyes narrowed.

"What mistake…?"

"I know," Setsu tucked her hands behind her back and clasped them together. "You have choir practice. I'll just go on my own."

"I'm sorry, Setsu-chan…"

She turned her back on Nami and walked away, momentarily looking over her shoulder. "Call you tonight, ne?"

"Sure!"

Setsu strode back into the Year Two Class Three room, roving eyes in search of someone. Two girls were currently sweeping chalk dust off the platform. One was dusting the teacher's table. A boy was clapping two spent blackboard erasers together. And he was mopping the floor.

"Hagiri-kun."

All the designated student janitresses of the day whirled toward her at the mere mention of his name. Glamorously plucked and shaped eyebrows crumpled into intense, telling frowns. Since when had their beloved Hagiri-sama and that Mayonaka freak been on speaking terms with each other?

The visibly unwilling janitor Kaname wiped sweat off his brow with his wrist, his ears slightly perking up to that voice he knew—and silently loved—so well. "Mayonaka."

"You took the Meiou Private High School entrance examination too, ne?" inquired Setsu, already knowing the answer to her own question. "According to Nami-chan, the results have just been released. I'll go check if our names are on the list of passers."

"Don't bother looking for mine," harrumphed Kaname, sliding a soppy, sloppy mop across the tiled classroom floor. "I didn't make it."

"Really? Last I checked, you aced a test that you were sure you failed."

A teasing smirk twisted the boy's lips. "You 'checked'? You mean you actually gave a damn about me?"

"Whatever I tell you here and now, you are sure to dangle over my head in the future. Which is why I won't give you any such satisfaction."

The undemonstrative, unaffectionate girl looked away and promptly trudged out of their room.

"I'm off."

She had just stepped into the City of Yukimi and was only halfway to the Meiou private campus when a thin needle of rain pricked her warm, rosy cheek.

Setsu held her palm up and gazed upon the gloomy heavens, swollen gray clouds shadowing the city, promising her a shower at any moment.

Great. Another icy bead fell onto her outstretched palm. Just when I didn't take my bicycle.

To Kaname, the rain was always much more pleasant to listen to when it came down in tempestuous torrents. Still gripping the handle of a school mop, he fondly looked out the sliding glass window of his classroom.

Suddenly, it hit him.

"Stupid." He muttered between gritted teeth. "Out in the rain and doesn't have an umbrella again." Lavender eyes hid beneath raven hair. "Always asking for trouble."

Just then, the student janitors and janitresses of the day jolted in shock upon hearing a heavy wooden mop handle loudly smack their newly cleaned floor. One startled girl caught sight of a familiar flash of jet black hair bolting out the door.

"Hagiri-sama!" she gasped. "Where are you going?"

Her uniform and hair clung to her like second skin.

A drenched, wretched Mayonaka Setsuki silently stood before the Meiou entrance gates, crossing her arms before her chest. But it was no use. She could not keep herself warm that way. Not with her soaked sleeves.

She tilted her head and eyes up to read the announcement posted on the campus billboard.

Meiou.

If I made it, then I could finally be in the same—

At that moment, Setsu stopped her thought in its tracks before it ventured into dangerous territory.

What am I thinking? I must not…

She sighed to herself, a cloud of cold mist escaping her lips. A gust of rain-chilled air wrapped around her and froze her to her core.

Glassy blue eyes scanned through the list of surnames beginning with the letter A. The name 'Akasaki Minaku' lit them up.

Nami-chan was accepted!

The same eyes were already ferreting out another name in the list when they suddenly betrayed her. From the corner of her eye, a Meiou student strolled past the school gate.

A gasp caught in her throat.

K…

"Damn, this is slow!" An impatient, irritated Hagiri Kaname candidly cursed his bicycle under his breath as he sped up his pedaling.

She must be soaking wet by now.

From the distance, he could make out the gates of the Meiou campus, its students casually, leisurely walking out in umbrellas. A boy and a girl took cover under the same umbrella, the guy clutching its handle between them as his girlfriend blissfully chatted away with him, her arm flailing wildly at her side.

And there she was, tacitly trembling before the entrance bulletin board.

"Mayonaka!"

She was holding herself close, trying to warm herself from the biting cold of the driving rain. Were her teeth chattering? Or was she biting her lip?

What—or who—was she looking at like that? Those haunting eyes of hers weren't as cold as he had expected them to be. She was just staring off into the distance in a strange silence, those ice blue eyes especially glassy… blank… lost… absent…

Gone.

A well-maintained black bicycle suddenly collapsed by her feet. Its owner clapped a hand on her forehead, feeling for her temperature.

His hand, Setsu's eyes remained still, tranquil. It's so warm. Or am I just—

"You're hot!" exclaimed a visibly upset Kaname, entirely unaware of the color flooding to his cheeks. "I—I mean, you've got fever!"

A long, listless pause lingered between them. Until she broke the silence with her usual "I know."

"Let's get you back home." Kaname raised his bike, propped it up against the brick wall next to the Meiou Private Academy gate, and scooped her up in his arms.

HN? Cautious instinct instantly arched Setsu's spine and legs away from his carrying hands. Put me down! "What are you—"

"What does it look like I'm doing?" Kaname spat at the miserable, vulnerable creature still stubbornly squirming against his chest. He set her down on the seat of his bicycle—whether she wanted him to or not. "You need to get dry, fast!"

He swung a leg over his bike and plopped onto what remained of its seat behind her. They were neither comfortable nor safe in his trusty vehicle, but it would have to do for now.

"Tsuki." A rough, gruff whisper warmed a frostbitten ear. "Pull yourself together."

"I'm fine, Hagiri-kun. You don't have to do this." A most ungrateful Setsu shot a defiant glare at the boy pressing against her back. Wait, what? "What did you just call me?"

Kaname choked on a gasp just as he wheeled away, his left hand on the steering handlebar of his bike, his right arm curling round her waist. She needed not hear that slip of his tongue again. "Don't fall. Hold on to me."

"Hagiri Kaname." A shaky Setsu still managed to scoff threateningly in spite of her blurring vision and growing lethargy. The steady rise in her body temperature was slowly but surely draining her of all energy. "What. Did. You. Just. Call—"

"'Tsuki'!" cried a reluctant, red-faced Kaname, suddenly feeling her body slipping away from his and pulling her closer. It may have served him well all this time, but he was still disappointed with his bike for its individual seating capacity. Now more than ever, he badly wanted that motorcycle. A big one. And a two-seater. "I've been thinking. Don't like it? Sounds much better than 'Setsu' to me."

'Tsuki'…? "Go back." Hiding her eyes beneath her hair, an ill-at-ease Setsuki deliberately dismissed the nickname, stiffly refusing to speak of endearments at the moment. "I haven't found our names on the list yet—"

"Forget it." That strong, warm arm tightened around her, smoldering lavender eyes burning more brightly than ever before. "I'm taking you home no matter what."

"Don't. Please. My father's not home yet. Remember what happened last time? If he catches you there—"

"What about my home?"

"That's even worse. He'll have more ammunition against you."

"A hospital!"

"That's not necessary, Hagiri-kun. I'm fine."

"Oh, yeah? Well, I'm not!"

"Hn?" Her blue eyes widened and blinked.

His lavender eyes hid beneath dripping raven hair. "It makes me sick."

Setsu hung her head low. You're blowing this out of proportion, Hagiri-kun… If you would only leave me alone, I could just turn back ti—

"I never want to see you that sad again. Ever."

She threw a sidelong glance behind them. Two small silhouettes sharing one umbrella headed in the opposite direction, slowly ebbing in the distance. She sighed to herself.

And so we part again.

"Keep that hair of yours away from your face," commanded a demanding yet distressed Kaname. "You're getting real pale and I can't see it."

At that, Setsu hung her head even lower, dripping wet streaks of sandy brown forelocks veiling her face from his eyes all the more. "Why should I? That's not a good thing to see anyway."

"Do you always leave it alone like that?" A frown crossed the prickly boy's face. "Don't wanna make your old man buy you stuff for your hair?"

"Exactly."

"Too bad." He buried his chin into that damned damp scalp. "You don't care for it at all. Maybe I like it better than you do."

At that very moment, Setsu found her cold cheeks warming up by themselves. Hagiri-kun… She snubbed his most unusual display of affection with a brutish grunt. "Thank you. Could we just… be quiet now?"

She followed her own word and fell silent. Within seconds, her eyelids sank. She resisted the lure of their urge, but they were closing on their own…

No, Mayonaka Setsuki. Your human body isn't this weak. Don't let that fever get you down…

"You know, you could cry if you want."

Weak, heavy eyelids snapped back open. Did Hagiri Kaname just… say that…?

"Guess who I learned that from a long time ago."

Blue ice met violet flames. "But I don't feel like crying."

"Don't worry." The slender arm keeping them together clutched her even closer. "I won't look if you don't want me to."

An exhausted hand, calloused from household chores and habitual drawing, reached for Kaname's shirt sleeve and gripped the fabric tight.

Now-peaceful lavender orbs softly gazed upon a paling female face, unable to tell if the drops rolling down those now-colorless cheeks had fallen from not so blue skies or all too blue eyes.

He sneezed for the eighteenth time in five minutes. His disgusting, deafening reflex reactions should have awakened her by now.

But she was still out like a light.

After drying it, the kindly nurse had tied the soundly sleeping Setsu's hair with a rose-red ribbon. The strangest smile threatened to curl Kaname's lips. Ribbons in her hair suited her. If only she was feminine enough to accept it.

"… A…"

"Huh?" Kaname froze for a split second. The girl of his dreams was speaking in hers. Taking care not to place any of his weight anywhere on her, he sat upon her bed, slowly sliding beside her right arm.

"… a… ma…"

Still fast asleep, Setsu squinted her already tightly shut eyes.

"'Mama'?" A frowning Kaname filled in the blanks, attempting a wild guess at what—whom—she saw or spoke to in dreamland. "Your mom?"

She suddenly bit her lip. She sank her front teeth so deeply into her lower lip that the soft layer of labial tissue broke and bled.

"Tsuki, don't do that," warned Kaname, seizing the sleeping form by her shoulders.

Within seconds, a thread-like leak of blood trickled down her lower lip. Her face wrapped, wrinkled, and writhing in an unspoken agony, the still-unconscious Setsu parted her lips and screamed without a sound.

"Stop that!" cried a now fretful, fearful boy on a local hospital bed. "Shut up!"

Kaname dug his fingers into the sandy brown locks blanketing her neck, drew her face to his own, and silenced her lips with his.

Stay… Go away…

A strong yet soothing pressure touched her lips and refused to let go. A heavy but warm breath tickled her once numb nose. Reluctant eyelids carelessly fluttered open.

K—!

She gasped right into his mouth. A calloused drawing hand clenched a thin hospital bedspread.

Kaname…

Continued

in Chapter Two:

Sinking into Despair

So… The childhood and first love of our devilishly handsome hit man (in the making).

How did you find it? ^u^

It may interest you to know that the female character named Mayonaka Setsuki (first nicknamed "Setsu," and later, "Tsuki") is NOT actually an original character (OC), but a very minor one-time character from actual YYH canon…!

She is the (once-anonymous) female character who appeared in a mere cameo alongside the Sniper himself in Volume 17 of (the English-translated edition of) the YYH manga published by VIZ Media—you can find her in pages 95 to 97 of that particular edition—as well as Episode 94 of the anime. If you can recall that episode, she was the dark brown-haired girl sporting a pink jacket with a light blue collar, faded denim jeans, and sneakers... the unnamed character capable of psychically reading the memories of the cruelly murdered animal lying upon the grass, right before Kaname's and her eyes. I just happened to give her a name and a personality here.

[And I firmly believe that "the girl who was with the Sniper" in that one scene was not necessarily his "sister"—just because the narrator of the YYH anime (whom we all know by now was Koenma's right-hand ogre and sidekick, Saotome Jorge) mentioned in that scene that Kaname "has a sister," to me it did not necessarily follow that the female character in that very scene was indeed his sister. I personally thought that she and Kaname were together—romantically. *blushes in giddy feels*]

To find out what becomes of them—as well as how the Dark Angel Sensui Shinobu discovers Kaname's potential for evil—then do look forward to Chapter Two: Sinking into Despair.