Anata ga Ita Kara

See disclaimer in 01

Theme: 10 – "I look at them, and they look back with those incredible eyes, smile, and it pathetically makes my entire day."

Rating: T

Summary: Kiri figured it was just one of those days, the kind where everything that can suck does. Then again, Kumo was waiting for him at home, so it couldn't be all bad.

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It had been a particularly harrowing day.

Kiri had had to deal with three separate groups of younger kids who'd thought they were hot stuff and, as usual, were resentful of his so-called social status. All three confrontations had devolved predictably into fistfights, and since they'd all been mob-on-one affairs, Kiri had just barely pulled through with his shaky knowledge of sendou.

After that, he'd had class, and already achy from all the fresh bruises, Kiri's concentration had been lacking. Sora'd spent the entire day breathing down his neck, demanding to know what was wrong and then interrogating him after she'd noticed the marks starting to show. Judging him incapable of carrying out his daily duties, Sora had then put him to desk work, writing an essay about the properties of sendou and how one could use it to heighten one's chances of success in battle. She'd then made him rewrite it twice, stating both times that his writing was filled with too much fluff and not enough about flying.

On the way home, there'd been still more fights, these about Kumo—there were still those who made fun of his albinism, and there were plenty more who liked to term him a whore because of how close he was to Kiri when they hadn't been life-bonded yet. If it had been about anything else, Kiri might have turned around and flown off—he was hurting that much—but there was no way he could let any affront to Kumo's honor, no matter how slight, slide by. He would've lost the last of those, but Hoshi and Arashi had been passing by and they'd come to his rescue. He'd thanked them afterwards, hoping that his desperate gratitude didn't show too obviously.

Ame had found them then, and she'd panicked when she'd seen him all beat-up and dragged him straight down to Kohaku's so that the two of them could heal his worst injuries. To add insult to injury, his mother had been down there paying a social call, and while Ame and Kohaku flanked him and discussed just how badly he'd almost lost, he'd gotten a searing lecture on why one does not brawl in the street like an uneducated child with no connection to the Way nor any communal sense at all. Beyond not being princely, it just wasn't polite.

So, feeling sore and needled and abused in almost every sense of the word, Kiri crawled back to the house in a black mood, knowing that he was probably all but haloed with storm clouds.

The first thing he saw once he was inside was Kumo.

Catching sight of him, Kumo visibly brightened, stood up, and ran over to him with a smile. "Niisama! You're home!"

Kiri's heart instantly went splat, and he found himself smiling back as he scooped Kumo into his arms and kissed his little brother deeply. Here at last was love, and warmth, and absolute acceptance. Here, in Kumo's gentle arms, in his soft lips, in his sweet scent. Here was a place where Kiri could die happy, right then and there.

"How was your day?" Kumo asked softly as they nuzzled close, all but purring.

Kiri just shrugged and held Kumo close. "…Eh. It could've been worse."

Owari.