A/N: This story is going to start out rather darkly before it turns happy and fulfilling again, but please don't be discouraged. Read the whole thing (it's a two-shot) before you turn away just because Shuuichi has been offed. I'm not entirely fond of character-death fics, so I wouldn't do that to you guys. (For the most part.)

Anyway, enough of my rambling. Read on (and don't forget to review!)

-
Into the Light

Part I
-

"My little boy is what?"

Yusuke winced and repeated himself with no small amount of regret. "He's dead, Mrs. Minamino. The police found his...remains in an alley off of the main neighborhood last night. The only thing they told me about it besides that was that they couldn't give you the body. They're going to cremate him and give you the ashes later." They had actually used the word 'pieces' in relation to his friend's body and one cop had mentioned that the larger bits were rather small, but there was no way he could let Kurama's mother know such a thing. "I'm really sorry. We had been out late last night and I was too tired to walk home with him; I never thought he'd be, well…"

The woman's lip trembled for a second before tears began slipping down her cheeks and she slid to the floor in a heap. "Shuuichi! Oh, my son! Shuu...!"

Yusuke winced and bent down to rub her shoulder, lost for words. What could anyone really say in a situation like this? Her precious son had been mysteriously murdered and hadn't even had the chance to say 'goodbye'. "Shiori...a couple of years ago he gave me a box to give to you if anything ever happened to him. I think it's time for me to pass it on to you. I don't know what's in it, but I think it was something really precious to him." It hadn't actually been years, just a month or two, but she wouldn't ask as many questions if she didn't think he'd been expecting this to happen.

Standing up and going over to his bag, he reached in and withdrew a long, thin box with a slim silver bow on it. Turning back and handing it to Shiori - who was making a half-hearted attempt to dry her leaking eyes on a scarred arm - he knelt down and watched her open the package with sad reverence.

Flipping open the lid, a fresh wave of tears made themselves known as she removed a fragile object and cradled it to her breast. Yusuke frowned at the sight of crimson and green. "Is that...?"

She nodded, giving little hiccoughs to accompany the tears. "This...Oh, Shuuichi. When he turned four and I discovered how much he loved plants, I bought him a small rosebush for his birthday. It didn't have any buds yet, but I showed him how to prune and care for it properly and within the month it had a little baby rose, sweet as could be, blooming. I was so proud... I told him that it looked like another little Shuuichi because of the red and the green, and he promptly snipped it off of the bush and presented it to me in a little vase. I kept it on my dresser for almost a year before it finally withered, but one day it disappeared from my room. I was worried the maids had taken it, since I had wanted to press and dry it, but I never found it...and now it turns out Shuu-chan had kept it..." Shaking hands brought the dried rose up and stroked a delicate petal, coating it with the salty residue of her sadness. "Thank you, Yusuke, for being there all these years for him. He never really had any friends until you and yours came along and swept him up in your group like he had always belonged. I never saw him as happy as he has been these past five years."

The raven grunted awkwardly, again at a loss for what to say. How could women toggle moods like that, going from the clouds of sadness to the silver lining on the edges? "I...Thanks, Shiori. He was an awesome friend, and I'm glad I knew him. I never realized that we were the first people he'd really gotten close to, though. I guess everybody always assumed that since he was popular, he had to have a lot of friends. But I know he would've taken you over us any day. He would've done anything for you; it was really obvious that you were the most important person in his life."

Kurama's mother only began to cry harder at his words, and Yusuke sighed internally. He wouldn't be able to comfort a crying woman he barely knew forever. He had to get going, but he knew Kurama would've sicced his shimaneki grass on him if he didn't stay with her through the worst of it. The redhead was gone now, and the woman needed all the support she could get.

-
Okay, enough of the sadness. Let's get on with the bright side and Into the Light, part II!