The boy had always been like a son to him. Perhaps it was the way he had always looked at him, or how he seemed to brighten when he praised him for his hard work. He remembered how his cheeks would color when he ruffled his hair, but not before he would complain that the affectionate touch was ruining his style.
Yuuki chuckled at the memory, his smile bitter as he stared ahead and continued walking down the snowy sidewalk and clutching the cane by his side.
The cold weather brought something else to his mind; something else that reminded him of the older days.
The weather was becoming colder as the season transformed into winter, the sky black and the first signs of December rolling in as snowflakes fell and piled along the side of the road.
He was dressed in a large coat and hat, a scarf wrapped around his neck as he walked home in the near-silent night with only his thoughts to keep him company.
A couple had walked past him, their fingers intertwined as they leaned against one another and paid no attention to him as they continued on with their ramblings of a happy life after the arrival of their unborn child. The woman looked to be a few months pregnant as she rubbed her belly with her other hand, looking up at her husband with doting eyes and a smile.
Their conversation had faded as he walked on, too preoccupied with thoughts on dinner to spare them any mind. His cane tapped against the cement as he went on and saw his apartment come into view from the dim street lamp.
The man looked and saw a small figure sprawled across the public bench beside the lamp, and he limped over to inspect the body that occupied the space across his apartment. The body was too small to be identified as any of the familiar homeless folk who often loitered around the streets for food and shelter for the night. Instead, it was the body of a child whose frame was covered only in a thin shirt and shorts that barely reached his knees. The boy's feet were bare and he wondered if he was lost.
Said boy looked up at him as he approached, his brown hair matted and face thin as his eyes looked up and met his own. He had bags under his eyes and dirt smeared on his neck and cheeks, like he had been sleeping outside.
The boy didn't say anything as he quietly watched the man from his spot on the bench, his large eyes half-lidded and lips parted in a trance-like state. "Are you lost?" He didn't recognize the child to be any of his neighbors', which only meant he wasn't supposed to be here.
The kid stared up at him, eyes glazed over as if he wasn't even focusing on the man's face and looking through him with an empty expression. His voice was hoarse as he tried to form words, his lips barely moving. "Yes."
Those same pale lips hadn't moved at all when he looked down and gazed at the now grown boy laying still on crisp sheets, his brown eyes empty. His expression looked peaceful, something he hadn't seen on him in quite a few years and it was a shame he had to see it under such circumstances.
Yuuki reached down and closed his eyes with his right hand, too pained to see them open any longer. He deserved to rest in peace; Yuuki could give him that much in return.
The older gentleman stared down at the boy in response before removing his scarf and wrapping it gently around the young boy's neck, the knitted fabric obviously too big for someone so small to be wearing.
The boy looked at it in a daze, as if wondering how he managed to wrap it around him in the first place. Looking back up at the man, he noticed that for the first time in days he felt warmth. "Why?"
It was clear that the boy was orphaned from the looks of it, his body being too skinny to have eaten a decent meal in some time. When he had placed the scarf around him, he felt his skin through his glove and noticed it was too cold, due to his dirty clothes that did little to protect him.
The question he asked was one he had also wondered as that very same hand reached out and rested on the boy's head, disturbing the matted hair there and parting it from his forehead. "How does supper sound to you?"