Warnings: a brief allusion to child abuse

Déjà Vécu:

I

Everything dies. This is an inevitable fact of life.

You are not an exception to this rule— this simple cycle of life and death.

You are not an exception to this rule, yet you are reborn into a world you once thought fictional as the twin of the main character. This, you do not realize until you're four and the daycare worker shouts an agitated Urameshi Yusuke at your brother because he's trying to glue craft sequins onto your face. It was either let him do this or he'd try to climb the bookshelf again and possibly break his fool neck while the teacher wasn't looking. You don't mind because the glue isn't strong, and you look forward to peeling it off your skin later.

It's the simple things in life that keep you going.

And your life is very simple, was simple, until now, that is.

At four, it's not like you have any reason to know your last name with certainty since most of the other children are still just trying to get a grasp on spelling and recognizing their first names. You know that you brother's name is Yusuke and that your name is Ryou and that you're both four. You've never paid close enough attention to what your mom's name is, but you'd be able to recognize her easily even if you don't see her as much as you probably should. Now you know her name's Atsuko, so you have that to tell someone if you ever get lost.

It's a bit of a stressful realization that bothers you enough to give you anxiety, and you've always been terrible at expressing your emotions. You're even worse at it now as a toddler with a limited vocabulary and bodily control. That just means you throw up when you get home, but don't make it fast enough to the toilet due to tiny legs, so it's a mess on the floor. Yusuke, bless his heart, screams at your mother until she wakes up still reeking of booze and cigarette smoke so that she can check up on you.

There's a lot of worrying and hovering hands not knowing what to do and fretting (all from Yusuke) before you finally get cleaned up properly and sent to go nap while your brother is ushered outside so he doesn't catch what your mom thinks you might have. Yusuke can't catch the anxiety you feel at the inevitable shitstorm of a life he's going to live, but you can't tell your mom that. You can't tell her a lot of things anyway; she's bad at listening.

However, she does let you rest your head against her chest, and the sound of the tv and the subtle rise and fall of her body lull you to sleep. This, you realize, is the closest you've been to her in a while, and you wish she didn't smell so strongly of alcohol and the lingering scent of smoke.

Life before you died is made up of hazy and half-remembered memories like distant dreams to be forgotten and then recalled at different times.

You know you were young when you died; fresh out of graduate school with no idea what to do with your life beyond that since school was all you knew and all you bothered to know. You can't remember if you lived in California or Florida, just that it was always warm and there were palm trees and beaches and road trips to places every summer. Your family life was good; caring parents and laughing aunts and wild uncles and teasing cousins and the wisest of grandparents.

You don't remember if you had a sibling, not clearly anyway. Sometimes you remember someone older than you and more doting than your parents, annoying in a fond sort of way. Sometimes they aren't there when you think they should be. Sometimes your memories make you feel like there's an aching hole in your chest and a longing for someone that is no longer there, can't be there.

Maybe you had one and then maybe one day you didn't.

You don't think about it too much in the same way you don't think about how you died or what your old name was. These memories, if prodded at too much, make your head hurt; this body is too young to be dealing with chronic headaches.

(You also don't think about how Yusuke is destined to die to become fully realized.)

It's for the best. That's what you convince yourself of, at least.

Your placement in this life is so odd and awkward that you wonder if you should just distance yourself from Yusuke as much as possible. However, that's impossible because Yusuke is your twin, and he clings to you like a limpet since you're easily the most important person in his life right now. He's the self-proclaimed older brother, after all, so he always holds your hand when you both need to cross the street, and once, he punched another kid in class because they snatched a book out your hand. From that point on, you knew you'd be under his protective nature for the rest of your days.

Actually, you were under his umbrella of fierce protection long before that when your father was still in your lives. You don't remember any important features of the man, just that his stature was towering and voice loud. His and Atsuko's voices were always loud, always yelling and shaking the thin walls.

Yusuke was loud too, still is, actually, but only in the way children were loud when they want attention: pushing things over, screaming, always underfoot, yearning to be noticed by the people that were supposed to notice him when no one else did.

Discipline, you remember your father calling it, but discipline doesn't leave red marks that take hours to fade and doesn't make your children fear you daily.

One of your first clearest memories in this life is spilling a carton of juice all on the kitchen floor one night since tiny hands can't hold many things steady yet, but you were thirsty and knew better than to bother anyone when you were supposed to be sleeping. No one heard you, luckily, so you cleaned it up as best you could with a dirty towel and went back to bed, nervous at the idea of being yelled at when the mess would get discovered at whatever time that would be.

Yusuke took the punishment for it— took the scolding and the yelling and the timeout with no complaint outside of a sigh he definitely learned from hearing Atsuko do so all the time.

"I spilled the juice." You ended up confessing, even though he knew and obviously didn't care.

He just stared at you for longer than necessary, as if somehow, he couldn't believe what he was hearing, shrugged, and went back to digging a hole in the dirt with his hands.

And that was that.

You decided at that time not to question it. You still don't question it; your brother's fierce loyalty to the people he loves.

There are worse things he could be, after all.

A/N: sorry for the radio silence on this account (actually debating if i should post stuff from ao3 onto here but shrugging emoji) anyways! ive been nostalgic has hell coupled with very inspired by very good fics lately so i decided to stick my hands in the yyh waters bc i really like the universe and the characters. i wanted to mess around with using 2nd pov because i find it really fun to write but outside of that it isn't a reader-insert since ryou is a set and distinct character but i hope y'all will like him. can't have too many male!ocs i think.