No child should have to fear madness.

(Had he been in here for ten minutes or ten years?)

With no means to measure distance or time, with nothing but the cool air to chill his skin, no sound in his ears but the thundering of his heart.

Faster. Louder. Too fast!

(If given the option, Yuki Sohma would take a dozen beatings over being trapped in here.)

Your body will get weaker if you don't move… he reminded himself. The first few hours, he always tried to remain logical. He paced slowly, knowing the paces.

One, two three, four, five, six, bump! (His hand on the concrete wall.)

Turn. Step.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, bump!

He experimented. Longer steps! Tiny mouse steps. Skipping…

But the skipping caused him to cough. He feared irritating his bronchial tubes in here; if he suffocated, nobody would notice in time.

Instead, he sat and hummed a little song. "Who's in the forest strolling? The birds and the bees sing…"

Cough. Cough.

Hey, his eyes had finally adjusted a little! He studied the paint on the walls. It looked like the scribbled drawings he had created as a baby, though entirely black, tiny speckles of white wall showed through the hastily painted mess.

The white spots on the sea of black, he imagined, looked like stars in the sky. Or perhaps tiny reflections of moonlight on a gently rippling lake, or…

Or eyes.

Dozens and dozens of nocturnal eyes watching over him. Owls and foxes; weasels and cats. He imagined he saw the narrowed gaze of a hawk, and something small and warm inside him gave a tremble and a squeak.

(He'd never been frightened of the dark before moving into the Sohma mansion. Now, it was his only true fear, because it was all fears combined. Who knew what the darkness hid?)

"You're disgusting," the voice seemed so clear and real that the child whirled around to where he thought the door was, expecting to see light, the silhouette of the little boy.

There was nothing. He was hearing things again.

"Disgusting and pathetic. Nobody loves you, Yuki. If people knew what you really were, they'd stomp you out."

The child covered his ears but the voice in his head spoke on, unperturbed.

"Rats are pests. Everybody hates you. Only I will ever be able to love you."

(Demons hide in the darkness—the darkness of the world, and the darkness in a small boy's heart.)

…

Isuzu never said much at the best of times, but she was silent as a graveyard whenever they made these excursions.

Because she was thirteen and he was eleven, it never took too much effort for her to manhandle him into crannies and doorways, shielding his body with her own whenever footsteps tapped around corners or the shadows approached.

(He loved her best like this, with fierce protectiveness shining in her beautiful black eyes. Her thoughts seemed to shine through most when she was afraid, appearing like ink stains under her porcelain skin. This boy is mine. You will not touch him.)

"We're here, Rin," he whispered, taking her wrist in his hand once they found the familiar door, kept closed by a broken piece of furniture—the wooden top of a desk?—angled to keep the contents of the room within.

Holding their breath, they slid it aside.

"H—Haru?"

Arms were flung around his neck and gray hair tickled his nose. Already he felt the hot drizzle of desperate tears on his neck.

"In, get in!" Isuzu snapped, pushing the two younger boys into the hellhole and closing the door behind them.

(Haru was relieved Yuki could still weep. At the worst of times like these, the rat would sink so deep into himself that not even tears were possible.)

"Two days," Haru said to answer the unasked and perpetual question. "You've been in here for two days this time, so far."

Yuki was scrabbling over Haru, into his lap, hands in his hair. He smelled of sweat and salt and fear, aching for sensation, for proof that he was still alive.

"I brought you something," Haru said, pulling boxes of juice from his coat pockets. "Drink them now so I can hide the trash."

Isuzu had one ear pressed to the door, forever vigilant.

Yuki drank the peach, the melon, the mixed berry, nearly sobbing again from the much-needed calories.

(His gratitude at such a tiny gesture made Haru hate himself. I don't deserve your thanks.)

They talked then, in the black room. Of cartoons and martial arts and school, of food and homework and family. Yuki hung onto every word like a lifeline, gray eyes hollow and hungry.

"I'm leaving," Isuzu stood up and slipped through the door with such terse abruptness that it made both boys jump. Haru knew the signal well. Someone is coming. Time to run.

Yuki gave a little moan and grabbed onto Haru's sleeve.

"Don't leave me," he whispered. "I can't take it anymore."

Haru saw something, then, in his cousin's eyes. Something frayed and strained and ready to snap.

(If you leave now he'll be broken forever.)

"I…" Haru stuttered, conflicted. He was trapped between two loves, two halves of his heart. Black and white.

"Come on!" he heard Isuzu hiss from the other side of the door.

Haru peeled tiny fingers, one by one, off of his sleeve. "I'll be back," he promised, more to ease his own guilt than anything. He felt as if he were breaking the rat's fingers though he was being gentle as possible, for all the pain in his cousin's face.

"I'll be back," he repeated as they shut him, once again, into darkness.

…

Pathetic little thing, Shigure thought to himself as he eyed the unmoving bundle of skin and fabric on the concrete floor.

Shigure knelt by the child's side and, with a gentle hand, turned him to look at his face.

(He hasn't been eating, said the family doctor. Or even moving.)

The only response was a slight shrinking of pupils as more light from the open doorway poured onto the child's face.

Shigure had never paid too much attention to his little cousin—who had?—but he smiled. Yuki was the spitting image of his older brother, with a side of trauma and emaciation to keep things fresh.

"Hey, kiddo," he said loudly, cheerfully, as if Yuki weren't a mute catatonic victim of abuse collapsed in his own personal room of torture. "I'm your big cousin Shigure; you remember me, right? I'm the dog. Doctor Hatori told me that you weren't looking so good."

(If Yuki was listening to him, he didn't show it.)

"I got kicked out of the mansion," Shigure confessed. "Couple weeks ago. Caused some trouble. But I've got my own place now! Nice little secluded spot in the woods."

(If Shigure felt discouraged from the lack of response, he didn't show it either.)

"Let's cut to the chase. Do you want to come home with me?"

Yuki's eyes slowly rolled until he was looking at the dog, and Shigure's permanent smirk increased, briefly, into an actual smile.

"It's no big deal," he coaxed. "Just two lonely bachelors roughing it in the woods. Maybe your brother will stop by every now and again, shake things up a bit. Would you like that?"

Any interest in the boy's eyes dimmed at the mention of Ayame, and Shigure stumbled to correct the mistake. "Or not."

(He coughed awkwardly and fluffed his shaggy black hair out of his face.)

"I get it, kiddo. You're been through some hell. We're Sohma's; it's what we do. They don't call it the family curse for nothing. But don't throw in the towel just yet, eh? Not if I can promise you'll never have to be locked in this room—or any other—again."

A lie of course—Shigure could sooner stop the rise and fall of the ocean than change the mind of Akito—but…

"Never?"

The whisper was hoarse and raspy. Shigure smiled again.

(What's a little white lie or three.)

"I promise. What do you say?"

There was a long pause and then a tiny, tiny nod of Yuki's head. There was some life in the boy yet. A tiny ember, willing to fight another day.

Shigure stood and, with a little "hup!" he'd scooped the boy's light body into his arms. Yuki fainted almost instantaneously, no doubt the increased blood circulation a shock to his under stimulated brain and body.

As he left, walking through alleyways and side streets in his effort to avoid attention across the vast expanse of Sohma property, he saw a pale face pressed against a house's glass windows.

Hatsuharu.

Shigure offered a cheerful wave to the child. All is well, he tried to convey. Hatori got your message. We're on our way now. See you soon.

Haru chewed his lip, looking nervous, and then he looked back up and mouthed the words "thank you."

Shigure tipped an imaginary hat and resumed his path.

Don't give up yet, Yuki Sohma, he thought to the tiny bundle in his arms. The world is beautiful.