It is evening, and Yukimaru kind of slightly wants to die (just a little bit).
He flicks the edge of his katana against the chest of the man in front of him, effortlessly, almost lazily, and looks up at the purple sky above him. A few stars are out already and he cocks his head at them, ignoring the thump of the falling body.
The snow turns scarlet beneath his feet, and Yukimaru can't help but find the scene rather beautiful; red on stark white, striking under the deep purple sky.
He sinks to the ground with a sigh, one that's both a contented sigh and a longing sigh. He sighs again, at the beauty around him, at the feeling of wiping his blade clean after yet another kill, and at this emptiness in him that seems to do nothing but pull and pull at him.
A few flakes of snow start to fall now and Yukimaru catches one between his fingers, thinking, as he always does, of snow-white skin and jet-black hair, of empty grey eyes and the cold that numbs him - and there it goes again, pulling at him so hard he feels he just might break.
He pushes his hair out of his face and these feelings out of his mind and - well, that's always been a particular fault of his, hasn't it, having all these damned feelings, swirling around in his head, clouding his thoughts.
He wants to laugh because he doesn't even know what he feels for the man, this perfect, hollow man who's made himself a home in Yukimaru's head and heart for quite some time now - love, lust, envy, devotion, hatred - he doesn't know, and this time he does laugh. The familiar emptiness pulls at him again, and he decides it's hatred. It has to be, he realises; it has to be simple blinding hatred because if it is anything else he knows he will break.
Yukimaru hates him, hates the empty man with the empty eyes, and his blade itches to cut into that smooth white flesh he's spent a lifetime worshipping.
It has to be hatred, he tells himself again as the snow begins to fall in earnest. He wipes his already clean blade again, wipes it until it shines, and laughs at the name of the man who's ruined everything. Benevolence - of course, how ironic, and Yukimaru laughs and laughs, the sound harsh against the emptiness that's around him and inside him, laughs because he hates the man.
The snow falls and still Yukimaru sits there well into the night, shivering in the cold that numbs him.