A Genome Apart
Summary: The last of his kind, Yukine just wanted to keep his head low and stay alive. But when he has a unique dietary need for human flesh, a fragmenting state of mind, and the entire world out to get him, even that goal seems impossible. He would need more than just a little bit of luck.
October 10th, festival season. Doe-like amber eyes watched as party-goers and shopkeepers ran around frantically to keep up with the festivities. The eyes were looking for stragglers, those without any interest in the festival, or those that attended alone. On days like this, no one will notice a missing person or two.
Or at least, not until days later. By that point, the only remains will just be the pearly white remnants of what they once were.
Loud shouting pierced his eardrums abruptly. Blonde spiky hair swayed over his eyes briefly as he turned his head, only to see a girl roughly the same age as him storm away from her group of friends. The click-clack of her wooden sandals slowly faded as she disappeared.
Months of practice (and error) managed to suppress the urge to immediately pounce on the sighted prey. The target had fled to an alleyway with tears in her eyes. A hungry grin slowly made its way onto his fairly lean face. He followed the girl into the alleyway. It didn't take much to find the girl, considering how her hair stuck out from the drabness of the alleyway. Walking up to the shuddering mass of green hair, he opened his mouth,
"Bad day at the festival?"
The girl tensed up at the voice, only to relax when she saw the small figure of the boy. She quickly looked away, wiping her tears.
"My friends are mean", she whispered softly.
"What did they say? You're really pretty, so it couldn't have been that", the boy asked. The amber eyes were widened purposefully.
The girl giggled despite her tears, "T-thanks!", but said not much else. The boy sat down next to the girl and said,
"Did you see anything good at the festival? I heard they had some amazing takoyaki near the Monument."
She immediately perked up. For the first time, the boy managed to see her eyes. They had a teal hue, illuminated dully by light that filtered from the closed blinds of the nearby dango store. Tears forgotten within the blink of an eye, they looked at him excitedly, "Yeah, they were! Hey, were you there earlier when they hacked the octopus right in front of everyone?"
The boy shook his head, "Nah, I don't think I'd like it. Octopus isn't really my kind of food. I only knew about the takoyaki place because some people were talking about how good their food was."
"Oh, I guess. Octopus is sort of chewy and icky if not done right...but you should really give it a try! It's not even that chewy, it tastes just like shrimp tempura!"
The boy hummed in thought, "I don't know…to be perfectly honest, I don't really like seafood."
"Really? But they taste so good! I mean, it doesn't taste good if it's just steamed, but the way they made the takoyaki really doesn't taste like it. Ah fine, whatever. How about the steamed buns? They were around the Hyuga entrance, I think they were the ones that opened it actually…" she trailed off as she ran the thought through her mind for a bit. Then, like a lightbulb moment had just hit her, she exclaimed, "Oh! Maybe that's why the buns were colored lavender! Or it might have just been because they had taro in them…anyways, they had some really good food too! You should try them out!"
I don't really know why I was talking to this boy. Maybe the fact that he had comforted me earlier after Natsuko's teasing. No, my hairpin wasn't made from the dead pigeon in my chimney and yes, my dress was tailored by my mom.
Between the boy's wide amber eyes and the energetic (and slightly husky) voice though, it was hard for anyone to find a reason not to talk to him. So I did. Besides, my mom was coming to pick me up soon, and I don't want to be with Natsuko right now.
Besides, I somehow like talking about the food in the festival. I don't know why, normally I hate mentioning my digestible guilty pleasures.
"Does the steamed buns have any seafood?", the boy asked.
"Nope! Just bun, pork, and the most amazing seasoning ever, really!", I gushed. The way the gelatinous bun melted in my mouth was amazing, I haven't tasted anything like that. I bet it's the reason why the Hyuga are so secretive in their compound, they don't want people to find out about their secret recipe.
"Haha, okay. I'll go in a bit.", the boy smiled. I was about to stand up and show him where it was, when suddenly I realized that I never asked for his name,
"Hey, um, this is sort of awkward, but what's your name?"
The boy's smile became strained for a second, but it was so fleeting that I wasn't sure if I saw it. He said, "Yukine. What's yours?"
I giggled and said, "I don't think it snows here in Konoha. I'm Mamoru Haruka!"
Yukine nods but didn't say anything afterwards. I waited, thinking that he would say something. However, after a while it became apparent that he was either deep in thought or just didn't have anything to say so I said,
"Well, I think I have to go. It's about to be nighttime soon, I don't want my parents to worry."
I stood up to leave. Just as I turned, his voice rang out, "Haruka, huh? Cute name, I'll remember it."
I turned back to ask him what he meant, but immediately I saw something that made my heart still. His amber eyes, previously cute and warm, were gone. The sclera had turned completely black and his cornea had turned a disturbing crimson. Behind him formed four shimmering violet and red tentacles, each waving through the air slowly. It was eerily mesmerizing and, if they weren't so deadly-looking, beautiful.
I stuttered, "Yu-Yukine?"
Yukine nodded slowly, "That's my name. I'm sorry, Haruka."
Then, I saw the lower two tentacles lash out, going from right next to him and into me in half a second.
Everything went blank.
Yukine retracted his tentacles back into his tailbone, pausing to lick the flesh that remained on them. He walked over to Haruka, now a cooling corpse on the ground. Her eyes were still wide open, green eyes glazed over with an opaque film. Yukine knelt down next to her body and picked it up. Looking up and down the alleyway to make sure that he was not sighted, he retreated further into the alley. It wasn't safe so close to the street, he couldn't feast on the body (Haruka) without the possibility that someone will eventually see him.
Dashing out of his original alleyway, he went through the back alleys of Konoha. Luckily, the festival had brought most of the vagrants and beggars to the main arteries of Konoha. The dead body with two gaping holes in her back would have definitely raised some eyebrows even in the jaded eyes of the homeless.
Why did he forget the trash bag?
Yukine stopped in front of a tiny dead end, where the only visible thing was a dumpster. Looking once again to make sure that there was no one watching, he pushed the dumpster aside revealing a hole in the wall approximately a foot and a half wide and four feet tall. He slipped into the hole in the "dead end" and entered into a small one-bedroom apartment. Once he managed to squeeze the body inside, he reached for a hidden handle in the dumpster and pulled it back over the hole.
There was a distinctly cozy feeling to everything in the apartment, despite the mess that pervaded the living room area. There were no doors to anything except the outside world. The paint was completely white, save for a few yellowed spots in the kitchen area. A lone two-person couch, upholstery falling apart at the seams, sat in the living room. The kitchen consisted of a large table and a distinctly dusty stovetop. A laundry basket sat in the corner of the room, filled to the brim with clothing that had the distinct dampness of being soaked in water. The mild scent of countertop detergent hung in the air.
Yukine lifted Haruka's dead body onto the table with ease that shouldn't be possible in a 7 year old. His mouth began salivating at the thought of finally being able to eat, after two whole months of living off of the same old homeless person's corpse. Grabbing a butcher knife, he prepared to portion the body when he inadvertently looked at the girl's eyes.
Damn...what is this feeling?
Trying to ignore the lifeless stare of the girl's eyes, he clenched the butcher's knife and began hacking away at the body. Mentally, he pleaded uselessly for the head to stop looking at him while he was dismembering her. He gritted his teeth as he finished the legs and had to start separating the torso. Now, there was no way to avert his eyes from the gaze.
Why do I feel like this? It's like I've done something massively wrong, something that I should not have done.
He looked back at the stack of prepared legs. It wasn't the first time he's went out hunting for food, and the way he chopped up the body wasn't particularly heinous. What was the issue, then?
It's because you knew her.
Yukine winced at the thought. Was that why? That he knew her name? He shook his head to clear the thought, discarding the thought as mere uselessness, and set his mind back to the task. Unbeknownst to him, his eyes had turned amber for the briefest of moments.
Grimacing, he put his hand over the glassy green eyes and closed Haruka's eyelids shut. He just hoped that when he fell asleep, he won't be dreaming of steamed buns or takoyaki balls. Or of a certain girl.
The next morning, Yukine groaned. Once again, the morning sun finds the smallest fault in his curtains and turns a trickle of sunlight to a torrent of blinding rays. And somehow, the only place that is illuminated is his pillow.
Dragging his body off the bed and going to the kitchen, he grabbed the last morsel of food from the previous person's body. He wasn't quite sure when the expiration date on human meat was, but it's somewhere between alive and the corpse he ate when he was first orphaned. Fun times.
Finishing the somewhat stale meat quickly, Yukine swung open his closet door with a light tug. The hinge creaked in the hope that it would finally get some lubricant. Yukine ignored it's plea, grabbing the only thing left in the closet – a light blue hoodie and khaki trousers. After slipping into the clothing, he walked out of his apartment. Right before closing the door though, he spared a glance at the pile of clothing in the basket. A yukata laid there, crumpled and bloodied. Banishing any wayward thoughts from his mind, he closed the door and locked it.
He had to get new clothes. It helped that the second-to-last person he killed had quite the wallet on him.
He walked into the closest clothing store in the neighborhood, which was still a forty minute walk. The northern ward had possibly the most anemic amount of clothing stores due to the amount of poor citizens living there, and quality stores there are even rarer.
While walking to the store, he tried not to notice the sheer amount of tattered clothing on the citizens. Everyone's clothing were either tattered or had a do-it-yourself patch over the clothing. Some of the lucky ones had their clothing repaired, but the fabric that was used to do the repairs were different in color to what they were repairing.
Right when he was about to enter the clothing store he had in mind, Yukine stilled.
A blonde girl laid on the ground, clothing ripped and bruises visible. Three whisker marks appeared prominently on her visible cheek.
First chapter, hoped you liked it! I haven't written in ages (sorry!), but this was something I couldn't stop my mind from wandering to. Please leave a review! And yes, this is a FemNaru fanfic.