Age: 10
"There's a rabbit on the floor and I. Can. See~ It." Yukio sang softly from his spot under a tree.
Focused on the book he was reading, he nonetheless didn't fail to notice the whispers around him. He was constantly treated as a weakling and a freak, because he was smarter. He was better than them, he had to be, right? His mirror image was the Son of Satan for crying out loud!
"His smile is off," he heard a girl's whisper. "When he laughs he's laughing with ghosts."
His smile was off? He wouldn't know whether to deny or admit that statement, as Yukio didn't exactly know how he looked like, apart from brown hair, glasses and moles. Whenever he saw a mirror, or reflective water, or was drawn, he always saw the Boy in Blue.
He was pulled out of his musings as the world suddenly became blurry, things out of focus. Yukio didn't take long to realize he didn't have his glasses anymore.
Approaching the mirror, Rin didn't walk fast, for there was no purpose to his wanderings. Nothing bound him. Nobody knew him. The loneliness how it ached. Nobody acknowledged him. All of them are enemies so it doesn't even matter. He and his reflection were oneandthesame, though the other hid it behind a shy mask. Nobody can see my jealousy.
The Boy in Brown was staring at the book with a smile on his face, though not completely focused. His eyes were like boiling water, skittering from one person to the next, its blueness seeming to Judge each person they saw.
That was until he saw one of the bigger kids sneak behind the Boy in Brown and grab the odd contraption off his face, the one that Rin had taken the habit of using whenever they talked. The other kids were tossing it back and forth to each other and made the Boy run frantically between them.
Rin did not care for the other human kids that shared their learning space with his Other. But he felt curiosity about why the others took upon themselves to hurt him. And slowly, as he gazed upon his taut frame that suggested so much with a face so similar to his own, a face that suggested what could have been but wasn't, his curiosity took a violent turn.
The brown-haired boy's eyes snapped onto his own-fire met steam. At that moment he wanted to tell the human boy to simply let himself go and tear them apart rip them make them dance to his tune but he stopped himself.
Why the Hell did they hurt the Boy in Brown?
I will Judge them because it's not fair not fair
I will Judge because we´re right and they're wrong
I will Judge because I want to and nobody can stop me
I will Judge because he won't
I will Judge because I'm the unseen
I will Judge because he's the embodiment of me
"I'll Judge, but now you gotta react. Like this." Rin fisted his palm and thew it upwards in imitation of a punch. Imagine his surprise when the other copied him, his mirrored shocked and confused look giving away the other didn't quite know what happened.
"Yeah! Just like that." Rin egged him on, tail wagging behind him enthusiastically. Finally, the Boy in Brown was learning how to fight!
"I know the principal told me, but I find it hard to believe it," Fujimoto Shiro stated as he walked back to the monastery with a timid Yukio. "Three of your classmates were bullying you."
"Yes." Yukio said as he gingerly pressed a finger to a sore spot. He just knew he'd have bruises eventually.
"They took your glasses."
"Yes."
"You took them on and managed to strike a few punches despite not having glasses and being outnumbered."
"Ye-" Yukio stopped when he noticed his dad's proud tone. The glasses-clad boy looked at the man in disbelief.
"You had to learn to defend yourself eventually, though next time I'd prefer you told your teacher about it." Fujimoto advised his son, before asking a question that had been bothering him. "Who taught you to throw a punch?"
"Uh…" Yukio stood frozen for a millisecond, knowing he couldn't say 'my reflection.' "My friend taught me." He blurted out.
Shiro raised his eyebrows. "Your friend?"
"Yeah!" Yukio scrambled his brain to think up a plausible explanation. "I met him in the park, by the lake. He was really angry when I told him about what's been happening at school. His name… His name is Kasai."
Walking up in front of the mirror after locking his bedroom door, Yukio was unsurprised yet worried at his mirror image's appearance. "Is that blood?! What happened to you? Did I get you in trouble?!"
Despite the pain and worry he felt, and because of the knowledge he couldn't do much, Yukio smiled at the mirror. "Thanks for what you did today. I mean, we certainly showed them!" he laughed aloud, before his face assumed a serious expression. "You're bruised far too often."
"Ah, something else," Yukio added. "I'm going to call you Kasai from now on. I think it suits you."
It troubled him that his reflection stopped smiling before he did.
"Can you hear me?" Rin asked. "I don't know if you can hear me…" he admitted to the boy in the mirror, the one that had bruises all over, too.
"Don't worry about this," Rin gestured to the slowly closing wounds all over him. "It will heal soon. It's just that, I've been training for so long and I haven't killed a single demon. I mean, yeah, I've injured them, but I don't really like the idea of killing them… Does that makes sense?"
As usual, no answer from the other boy.
"And today it happened again, and, well… Father got angry." Rin shuddered. Today he learnt just how terrifying his father could be once his patience had reached its limit. "He lets Iblis-nii and Lucy-nii do as they want, but I'm the only one who's training all day, and I never do anything right." Except Samael-nii, but according to Father he left some 200 years ago, he wanted to add but didn't. It felt good to vent. "I think once Amai-nii managed to make Father angry too…" he mused before remembering what he was going to say.
"Did I get you in trouble too?" Rin asked the other with wide eyes. Did discipline worked in Assiah the way it did in Gehenna? "I'm sorry..."
Rin stopped, thoughts crashing together. He had to apologize, but he didn't know…
Rin. And the other?
His name.
He has to have a name.
He has to have my name.
Rinrinrinrin.
My mirror.
Yes.
He's the skilled left hand…
The sound of the mirror of their names rang in his ears and he-
"I'm sorry, Len."
I'm sorry too.
