A/N: Sometimes, the mood strikes to write angst. And unfortunately, Yukine just happens to almost always fall victim. This particular piece doesn't depict any of the referenced tags directly, although I still urge readers to proceed with caution if you happen to be sensitive towards these topics. If you suspect that there might be a person being subjected to abuse, don't stand idle. I do feel that a lot of people DO turn a blind eye to the possibility of it. Some people think that it isn't their place or business, or even that someone else will step in. This is a flawed and stigmatized way of thinking that could eventually cost an individual their life if not changed. Yukine didn't get a happy ending, but maybe someone else could, with someone's interference.
It was a curse, carrying around a regalia's entire life. A God wore it like a coat on their back, that just grew heavier the more names that were given.
On nights like these, Yato desperately wished to remove them. He wished to wash his slate clean, and forget the gut-wrenching fates that had been dealt to these innocent souls.
He could only imagine how Bishamonten felt, as many names she had given that were still alive.
Currently, there was only one name he had to actively protect; that was Yukine's, the boy who had bared his vulnerabilities without question in efforts to keep him safe.
There was a reason Yato had found himself unexpectedly weeping the moment he'd taken the burden of Yukine's memories. The kid had suffered in a way similarly to himself, yet differently enough that it left him feeling like his stomach had been torn out on the spot.
His soul had cried out more than once to be saved. Yet, everyone who could have helped him had turned a blind eye, had feigned ignorance.
When he'd shown up to school with bruises, the teachers had said nothing. They'd shaken their heads, and wondered why so many fights had to break out before the day even started.
When he'd sit alone at lunch, barely picking at his food, the staff would mutter how wasteful it was, that a child not eat the food that they worked day in and day out to prepare. How he should be grateful.
When he'd walked into the counselor's office with his arms covered in bandages hidden by long sleeves, the woman had asked him why, with a vindictive stare that accused him of being the one to deal such damage.
When he'd taken refuge in the library with eyes damp and swollen, the other kids had mocked him, calling him weak for not being able to handle the weight of peer pressure.
Oh, how Yato hated kids. They were the cruelest of all, to add insult to injury.
And at the end of the day–that was when everything went downhill. At the end of the day, when that suffering soul should have been able to leave school and find solace in a place called home, it was opening a door to a whole different kind of Hell that was fated to repeated itself day after day.
A boy, desperate for someone to notice but being too frightened to raise his voice in fear of his own demons crushing him beneath their suffocating claws.
It had never once been considered that maybe, just maybe, something else was happening behind closed doors. No, it wasn't something that was automatically assumed or believed, unfortunately, and Yukine had paid the ultimate price for the poor assumption that most every human often made.
"What are you thinking about?" A voice reverberated in his inner thoughts, stirring the deity from his reverie as bare feet padded across the floor.
It was Yukine.
On nights like these, Yato would always manage to pick up the pieces and, like everyone else in the boy's past, turn a blind eye to the memories he was forced to carry. It was over now. Too late–but it wasn't too late to give the child what he'd been previously, selfishly deprived of.
"The moon…"
He'd never forget, and he would never abandon the child after everyone else had. That was a promise.
"It sure is pretty tonight, isn't it?"