Next drabble in the Unforgettable 'verse. This is the second, if you haven't read the first one I suggest you read this one first. This will make a bit more sense. It's not strictly necessary, though. I hope you like it :)

Warnings: Character death? But it happens before this. A bit of cursing. That's about it :)

Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to No. 6 except for any fic I write, obviously.

-Sami

Nezumi shuts the front door quietly, as though he will awake someone with too loud a sound. Indeed, someone is lying on the bed. Indeed, they are sleeping. But it is an eternal sleep. No matter how much Nezumi hopes and prays and begs... It will always be eternal sleep.

He hates coming back to the apartment. It gives him the creeps. Plus, it seems as though the only things that can be done there are cry, practice, read, and cry some more.

Nezumi really wishes that his tear ducts would dry up; he hates to cry, and he hates himself for making a habit of it (not that it is in purpose, of course, but Nezumi was never logical when it came to feelings). Isn't it enough to feel the pain inside? Must it burn in his eyes and must it rip from his throat in tears and gasps and sobs that simply cannot be held in?

The world wants his suffering to be evident, with his bloodshot eyes and dark circles, with his horrible dry lips and shaking hands.

Nezumi must plan some sort of a funeral. He has never seen one before, but Shion read about them in one of the many books and that was it.

"Nezumi, if I die before you, will you give me a funeral?" Nezumi looked up from his script, startled. He knew what a funeral was; he was an avid reader, and honestly they had always fascinated him... Instead of voicing that thought, however, he said in a bored tone,

"Why the hell would I ever do something like that?" Shion swallowed, shifting in his seat a bit, which Nezumi thought absolutely adorable, but of course he would never say something like that, either.

"Well..." Shion began nervously. "It seems so strange, but such a beautiful thing to... To honor and remember the dead instead of dumping them into a random plot of land or shoving them into black boxes where no one will ever see, just so that we can push the person and their death to the very back of our minds... I mean, it sounds wonderful, to me..."

"There is nothing 'wonderful', about death, whether you experience loss, or whether you pretend it never happened or hell, have a fucking party like you seem to think those 'funeral' things are, you ignorant little shit. Death is death." Nezumi had been harsh before, but never so blatantly and unnecessarily cruel. Nezumi turned back to his script.

"I'd do it for you." Shion said softly. Nezumi pretended not to hear him.

Later Shion got a lecture about how it was unsafe to invest in someone like that... To commit to them...

Now, Nezumi had broken his own rules.

So, he thinks to himself as he absentmindedly chops the vegetables for his Macbeth soup for one, Maybe I was asking for this. I'm a fucking hypocrite.

Nezumi had read every book he could find on funerals, and there were many funerals, big funerals that filled a whole church (those also mystify him; gathering to praise something in the sky? He has heard of God, and even of gods from his books, but he did not fully understand them) and with a man in charge reciting religious scriptures and memories; a man after a large funeral, at this thing called a cemetery, one that holds the dead, and where you can visit those you have lost. Again, this he did not quite understand; they were dead. They were underground. Doesn't it feel strange to talk to a stone in the ground? But his favorite, the one that when he had read of it he had cried, was a small outdoor funeral, and a mother gave a speech of a small boy who had been kidnapped, brutally beaten, and found dead in a locked shed. He was her son, but instead of speaking of what had happened, she spoke of his life. She spoke of how his eyes lit up when he played a guitar (Nezumi has heard of the guitar but has never seen one) and how polite he was and his friends. He was ten years old. Nezumi had watched ten-year-old boys disappear in flames, screaming bloody murder as though someone could save them. They were good boys, friends of Nezumi's even, before he was a corrupt and cynical individual. Yes, he had cried because he wished he could have done that for his family, of whom he barely remembered.

And now Shion wants a funeral. It is strange how Shion was the last person he could ever imagine even enjoying their company, but Shion made him smile even if he didn't want to and feel even if he didn't ever plan to.

Yes, he will give this boy a funeral. Whether he wants to or not. It was the only thing Shion really ever asked of him.